. i ATONEMENT 



11 






I 



CHRISTIAN TRINITY 





•L.3i 



PRESENTED KY 




'I'll K W'TI U »i: AM i HIS WIFE 



THE AT-ONEMENT 

BY THE 

CHRISTIAN TRINITY 



OR 



THE LEGAL AND SPIRITUAL SALVATION 
OF MAN FROM SIN MAKES MANI- 
FEST THE DUAL PHILOSO- 
PHY OF THE GOSPEL. 



BY 



SAMUEL SPAHR LAWS, D. D. 



1. First President of Westminster College, the Synodical 
College of the State of Missouri, for seven years, and 
Prof, of Psychology, Logic, the Evidences of Christ- 
ianity and the Political Sciences. 

2. The President of the University of the State of Mis- 
souri, for 12 years, and Professor of Psychology, Logic 
The Evidences of Christianity, Philosophy and 
Political Sciences. 

3. Professor of Apologetics or Comparative Religion, in 
the Theological Seminary of the Southern Presbyter- 
ian Church, at Columbia. S. C, for five years. 



PUBLISHED BY THE AUTHOR. 
1919 








1 




x^H 



Jkbtratrfc 

ta 

®l\* itorarki*, 

BY A MINISTER OF 

THE SOUTHERN PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH. 

In whose service my life has been chiefly spent. And it is for the resumption 
and perpetuation of this life work that the will of the Author con- 
templates the founding of several scholarships whose benefic- 
iaries shall be organized for mutual benefit as minis- 
ters, at Montreat. N. C. and devoted to the 
resumption and perpetuation of his 
life work in the ministry 



CONTENTS 



CHAPTER I Page 

Edenic State — Missing Link to be Found — 
First View of Man — Moral Agency — The 
Moral Law — Covenant of Works 13 



CHAPTER II 

Lapse or Fall — Archangel Tempter— Origin 
of Sin — Natural and Moral Ability of 
Man — Nature and Definition of Sin 15 



CHAPTER III 

The Promise — Two Obstacles — Precept and 
Penalty of Law — Weakness of Violated 
Law — Resourcefulness' of Love— Legal 
Problem — The Serpent — Protevangelium 
— The Promise as Climax and Fountain.. 17 



CHAPTER IV 

The Incarnation — Epiphanies of Jehovah — 
Virgin Birth — View of Scientists — 
Christ, like Adam, Under the Broken 
Law — Differences of Broken from Un- 
broken Law 21 

(7) 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER V Page 

Vicarious Substitute — Mary's Confession and 
the Circumcision of Christ — Professor 
Driver 25 



CHAPTER VI. 

Egoistic Redemption — Sermon on the Mount 
— View Worthy of Consideration — Im- 
portant Test — Precept Completely Met 
—"I Am" 27 



CHAPTER VII 

The Penalty — "Surely Die" — Sin a Capital 
Crime in God's Moral Government — Defi- 
nition of Sin — Apostle's Creed — Cruci- 
fixion — Justin — Martyr — Tertullian — Ti- 
ber! ls — Worship of Emperor — Christian- 
ity a i ' Religio Illicita 9 ' — Poly carp — 

Forecasts of the Crucifixion 32 



CHAPTER VIII 

Caesarea Philippi — Mount of Transfiguration 
— Egypt — Exodus — Wilderness — Fidelity 
— Epiphanies of Jehovah — Visit of Moses 
and Elijah — The Angel in the Garden — 
Saviour's Prayer Denied — Ventriloquism 
— Crucifixion 38 



Contents. 9 

CHAPTER IX Page 

Unique Messiah — High Priest — Why He Came 
to the Human Race — Faith — Functions 
of a Priest — Sacrifice — Intercession — 
Explanation of Justifying Righteousness 
— Imputation — Its Denial a Sin vs. the 
Holy Ghost — Egoistic Sacrifice — Imputed 
and not Personal Sin — Dual Significance 
of His Sacrifice — Priority of Signifi- 
cance and Efficiency 53 



CHAPTER X 

Christ 's Justification — Adoption — Sanctifica- 

tion — Holy Spirit's Work — The Internal 
Obstacle, Its Importance — The At-one- 
ment Work of the Second and Third 
Persons — Equally Substantial and Im- 
portant 62 



CHAPTER XI 



Original Announcement — Method Inductive 
— Two Obstacles — The Scriptural Substi- 
tutional Doctrine — Edenic State and 
Historic Sketch of Our Fallen Race — 
Edwards — Stalker 67 



J () Contents. 



CHAPTER XII p a g e 

Tin; Triune Service in this Atonement— the 
( J heat Commission— The Paraclete— 
"Fiijoque"— Pentecost— Christ's Return. .87 



Miscellanea 



98 

Part II. 



The Trinity 



113 



Part I 



The Atonement, Legal and Spiritual 

(1) Legal— Objective. 

( 2 ) Spiritual— Subjective. 
Miscellanea. 



Part II. 

The Trinity. 

(1) Scripturally Stated by the Savior Himself in the Great 
Commission. Matth. 28th-18-20 (Am. Rev.). 

(2) Ecclesiastical Statements— Apostles' Creed. 

(3) Creed by Christ— John. 16th-8-ll. 

Appendix Omitted. M'mse. Preserved, 200 pages. 



PREFACE 



This book on the Atonement of Christian- 
ity is discriminative and discursive. It is sugges- 
tive and episodical. It is avowedly and in fact, 
scriptural. Its discovery of the "Missing Link" 
must be conceded; and this has brought out other 
things of interest. There are various conciliations 
and that of Christianity is now to be considered as 
preeminent. 

The Christian Atonement is Heaven's dictated 
Treaty of Peace with the human race. This en- 
deavor to faithfully group the facts and instruc- 
tions of the Bible truthfully around this rectified 
doctrine of the Atonement as truthfully and prop- 
erly understood, may be entitled to some fair con- 
sideration, as somewhat helpful to the Bible study 
of others. 

We shall see in the Christian Atonement a dis- 
tinction between redemption by Christ and com- 
pleted salvation by the Holy Spirit. In the exodus 
from Egypt redemption and salvation coincided, 
but, in the comprehensive gospel scheme, salvation 
is consequent on redemption. Christ, the second 
person of the Deity, effects our redemption; but 
the Holy Spirit, the third person of the Trinity, in 
fact, effects man's personal and individual salva- 
tion from sin. 

(ii) 



12 PKBFAGB. 

The two-fold deliverances, from the broken law 
and the evil heart as comprehended in or constitu- 
tive of the Atonement, are herein intended to be 
scripturally stated and defended. 

It is believed by the writer that there is a 
Scriptural link missing from the chain of orthodox 
Christian theology. 

Whether it may not be found in the proper 
understanding of the Atonement, it is the purpose 
of this book to inquire; and so fully and so 
clearly to point it out in the light of our sacred 

Scripture, that the wayfarer shall recognize it. 

THIS ATOX VA\ EXT ORIGINATING WITH THE 
FATHER, IS EFFECTED BY THE JOINT 
WORK OF THE LOGOS AND OF THE 
PARACLETE, 

The name Paraclete, from napd&Xyros means literally the 
calling of some-one along-side for needed help. The Scriptures 
make plain that the Holy Spirit has been in all the ages the 
Paraclete of the people of God. This is especially true of the 
followers of Christ and of Christ, Himself, "who through the 
Eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish unto God." Heb. 
0:14. 

Paraclete is therefore the all-comprehensive proper name of 
the Third Person of the Trinity. "Comforting" is only incidental. 



The Atonement of Christianity 

PART I. 

CHAPTER I. 

Edenic State — Missing Link to be Found — First 
View of Man — Moral Agency — The Moral 
Law— Covenant of Works. 

The first view we have of man on this earth, 
as given in the sketch of his life in Eden, is not 
only novel and beautiful, but, whether fact or fiction, 
it is wonderful for its simplicity and for valid 
philosophic profundity, and comprehensiveness. 

This graphic sketch represents man as a sub- 
ject of iGod's moral government of the universe 
already established, long prior to man's creation. 
Hence, as qualifying him for citizenship in this 
government, he was endowed w T ith the three es- 
sential constituents of moral agency — intelligence, 
conscience and freedom. Being thus constituted, 
inasmuch as all righteous and just government is 
founded on law, man was rationally and nor- 
mally a subject to and under the moral law of this 
pre-existing government, with the ability and dis- 
position to obey it, as the necessary condition of 
his well being. This state has been aptly desig- 

(13) 



-^ THE ATONEMENT. 



nated a covenant of works, for all practically de- 
pended on man's conduct. A covenant does not 
aecessarily imply the .quality „f the parties, except 
as t.> the competence of each to perform his part of 
the engagement or stipulation to avoid some evil or 
attain some good. .Man's ability to keep this Jaw 
ia implied m warning against disobedience. 
Gea 2:17. (.Appendix Al). 

It seems to be a reasonable implication in all 
Ins, that alter a certain probation, man would have 
been confirmed infallibly in this state of obedience, 
holiness and happiness. But this is not promised 
nor is it a necessary vonsequence or condition of a 
perfect moral and legal state and covenant of work 
Ihis legal state is the primitive state of natural re- 
ligion. As a matter of fact man was left free and 
competent to obey or to disobey, under this cove- 
nant : Obey and live, disobey and die. Gen 2 -17 



CHAPTER II. 

The Lapse or Fall — Archangel Tempter — Origin 
of Moral Evil of Sin — Natural and Moral 
Ability of Man — Nature and Definition of 
Sin. 

The result, however, was that man lapsed or 
fell from this Edenic state of innocence and volun- 
tary obedience, the state of natural or primitive 
Edenic religion, into a state of wilful disobedience 
and misery. 

But this sin was not, and could not have been, 
a spontaneous output of man's innocent nature, and 
we learn that it was; brought about by the over- 
mastering influence of an archangel already fallen 
and disobedient. (Appendix A2, 3.) 

Sin did not originate with man, nor in this 
world, but with a higher order of intelligence and 
in another part of the universe. 

Its origination, therefore, is a problem that 
transcends the history of our race, which is only 
accountable for its reception or extension into our 
cosmic order. But this is no mitigation of respon- 
sibility. 

In this fallen state man does not lack any of the 
constitutional endowments of mind of the unfallen 
Adam, nor the natural ability to know, love and 
serve Grod; but like fallen Adam, he lacks the dis- 

(15) 



L6 r 1 1 1 : ATONEMENT. 

position, or moral ability to do so. He still pos- 
tlio same natural endowments as did Adam 
before his fall, excepting, their enfeeblement 
and the disposition to nse these endowments 
aright. He has lost this disposition as did Adam 
in his disobedience, to use those powers aright in 
the knowing and loving service of God. Today, 
Adam is in the enjoyment of Jehovah's presence, or 
epiphany in human form, as a daily companion and 
teacher of the glories of the surrounding universe; 
tomorrow, after the act of disobedience, Adam 
shrinks away from that presence and hides himself 
to avoid meeting Him. The change that has come 
over his internal state is manifested thus outward- 
ly in concrete simplicity, as consisting of the loss of 
the disposition, desire or wish to use his heaven- 
born gifts in the company and joyously dutiful 
service of his Creator, Friend and Teacher, Jeho- 
vah. 

And this simple narrative gives us a more 
truthful and really philosophic definition of the 
nature of sin than was ever set forth in the ab- 
stract and elaborate speculations of the schoolmen. 
The subsequent natural and moral history of our 
fallen race is an illustration and a confirmation of 
this view — this sound scriptural view — that sin is 
not a defect of the evolution of man's nature, but 
the loss of ;i moral quality and energy of primary 
importance which he possessed in his original state 
of innocence and for the full restoration of which 
the Atonement makes full provision for the pardon 
of sin, the recovery of perfect holiness; — in a word, 
the beneficiaries of the Atonement of Christianity 
are destined to attain the blessed experience of eter- 
nal life. 



CHAPTER III. 

The Promise — Two Obstacles — Precept and Pen- 
alty of Law — Weakness of Violated Law — 
Resourcefulness of Love — Legal Problem — 
The Serpent — Prote,vangelium — The Prom- 
ise as Climax and Fountain. 

It is now to be observed that, in this fallen 
state, or state of sin, there are two obstacles, and 
only two, in the way of man's gaining heaven since 
the loss of Eden; one is the broken moral law by 
the lapse or fall, just noticed; and the other is 
this alienation from God and aversion to God of 
man's internal state of his heart and mind. In the 
state of innocence or natural Religion in Eden and 
under the original so-called covenant of ivorks, or 
state of innocence, or natural Religion in Eden and 
obedience, man was only obliged to comply with 
the precept of the law; but, in his state of dis- 
obedience, he also came under its curse, or the 
penal claims of the law; without any relaxation of 
the claims of the precept; for every law, human or 
divine, has two constituents — its precept and its 
penalty. The penalty is the sanction of the pre- 
cept, and in the absence of penalty and of a com- 
petent authority to enforce it, the precept is merely 
a rule of advice, within the discretion or good 
pleasure of the supposed subject thereof, and not 
law at all. 

As the law of God is the formulation or ex- 
pression of his justice, sin is properly defined as 

(17) 



18 THE ATONEMENT. 

the transgression thereof or want of conformity 
therewith, whether as a state or an act, and it is, 
therefore, an offense against Divine justice and 
righteousness. 

The law that condemns being a necessary ex- 
pression of the nature of God, is obviously incom- 
petent to reverse itself and accord deliverance 
or pardon from its own penalty unsatisfied. (Ro- 
mans 8:1-3.) Hence, this deliverance being beyond 
the legal competence of God, unless the law was satis- 
lied, the problem of the deliverance of man placed 
under the most serious requisition the resources of 
the triune God. It is a great and growing surprise 
that there is no explicit revelation of salvation of 
the fallen angels or other moral agents. Heb. 2 :16., 
Am. Rev. Ver. This brought to light, as never be- 
fore, the resourcefulness of the Divine nature — in 
that love, a co-eternally distinct but co-operative 
attribute with justice, was now seen to be competent 
to provide perfectly for meeting this exigency aris- 
ing from the incompetence of the broken law r , as 
Paul expresses it in the letter to the Romans, 8:1-3: 
"For what the law could not do, in that it was weak 
through the flesh, God, sending his own Son in the 
likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin 
in the flesh." I. e., invoked on Himself the penalty 
of the broken Law^. Rom. 3:17. This is an explicit 
statement of the scriptural mode, devised of Je- 
hovah, whereby God may "be just (in pardoning 
sin), and the justifier of him that hath faith in 
Jesus." (Rom. :>:26.) This profound solution of 
the legal problem of man's fall, by the harmonious 
co-operation of the Divine attributes of justice and 
love, is the keynote to the triumphant utterance of 
the Saviour, in his interview with Nicodemus, 
(John 3:16.) "God so loved the w r orld that he gave 



THE ATONEMENT. 19 

his only begotten Son that whosoever believeth on 
him, should not perish but have eternal life." Here 
we see that the Saviour brings to light also the re- 
moval of the spiritual obstacle, as well as the legal 
obstacle between fallen man and Heaven. 

That which especially concerns us at this stage 
of our inquiry is the enunciation of this mystery. 
set forth in the great promise on record, Gen. 
3:15 — "that the seed of the woman should bruise 
the serpent's head." The unfolding of this 
mystery extends from Eden to the general or 
final judgment. This serpent, which is "the old 
serpent" of Scripture, we are distinctly informed 
(Rev. 12:9, 20:2) was the metamorphosed archangel 
Satan himself, fallen and sinful, plausibly using ven- 
triloquism for deception, and this promise, which 
is the most important promise in the Old Testa- 
ment Scriptures, stands in the original Hebrew, 
firmer than Gibraltar, as a file on which the carping 
critics have broken their teeth. See Edersheim. 

This promise is properly termed: The prote- 
vangelium, or the primitive gospel. 

All that precedes this promise (Gen. 3:15) in 
the earlier scripture leads up to it and is for its 
sake, and all that follows to the close of the Apoca- 
lypse flows from it, as a stream from its fountain- 
head. The account of the general creation is not 
given for its own sake, but as preparing the way 
for the creation of man ; and the account of the crea- 
tion of man is not given for its own sake, as a part 
of his race history, but with reference to the fall; 
and the account of the fall is not given simply as a 
matter of valuable information; but as laying the 
foundation for this great promise of salvation, — 
that the seed of the woman should destroy the 



20 THE ATONEMENT. 

works Of the Devil. Heb. 2:14. Gen. 3:15; Rom. 
8:3; Heb. 7:25; John 17:4; John 3:8. "To this 
end was the Son of God manifested that he might 
destroy the works of the Devil." "I glorified thee 
on the earth, having accomplished the work which 
thou hast given me to do." 

And then, when we turn around and look for- 
ward to its fulfillment, it is found to be the one 
all comprehensive promise of the Messiah repro- 
duced in a countless variety of forms and utterances 
that pervade the histories, psalms and prophecies, 
summoned up thus in 2 Cor. 1:20: "How many 
soever the promises of God, they are all yea and 
Amen in Jesus Christ— In him is the yea; where- 
fore also through him is the Amen unto the glory 
of God through us." 

But the Xew Testament culmination of this 
promise, whose career constitutes the Christology 
of the Old Testament economy, is found most con- 
cisely embodied in Gal. 4:4: "When the fullness of 
time came, God sent forth his son, born of a woman, 
born under the law, that he might redeem them 
that were under the law, that we might receive the 
adoption of sons." There is, I believe, no other 
i assage in the New Testament, which (to use the 
expressive phrase of Shakespeare) so perfectly 
binds the new dispensation to the old, "with bands 
of steel/' as Gal. 4:4. 



CHAPTER IV. 

The Incarnation — Epiphanies of Jehovah — Virgin 
Birth — View or Scientists — Christ, Like 
Fallen Adam, under the Broken Law — Dif- 
ference of Broken from Unbroken Law. 



We have before us in this simple and explicit 
language of Gal&tians the fact of the incarnation, 
its nature, state and purpose. In the fullness of 
time, i. e., in God's own time, He sent forth His 
Son, the second person of the Trinity. This classic 
passage has its equivalent in John's Gospel, Chap. 
1:14. 

"The Word (Logos) became flesh and dwelt 
among us and we beheld his glory, glory as of the 
only-begotten of the Father, full of grace and 
truth." That is to say, the same Jehovah, who in 
ethereal epiphanies appeared in human form in 
Eden, also in like manner subsequently often ap- 
peared unto the people of God, in ancient days ; but 
as already pointed out, especially to Adam, as 
probably a daily teacher and companion in Eden, 
for fifty or a hundred years before Eve was pro- 
vided as his companion and helpmeet, is the same 
personality as the one here born of woman as her 
promised seed. When this appointed time came for 

(21) 



22 THE ATONEMENT. 

the anticipated incarnation, or birth, that should 
transcend those ethereal epiphanies, in the human 
nature of flesh and blood, a true human body 
and a reasonable human soul were assumed. This 
was accomplished (Matt. 1 :18-25) supernaturally 
by the conception in the womb of the Virgin Mary, 
by the power of the Holy Spirit, and by His being 
born of her without personal sin, but burdened with 
the imputed sin of our race, as the prophet says, 
[saiah, 53:6: "Jehovah hath laid on him the in- 
iquity of us all." (Appendix C.) 

So far from there being any allusion to a human 
paternity or implication of it, in being born of 
woman, this explanation as given (Matt. 1:18-25) is 
plainly exclusive of it. Thus two natures, one hu- 
man, the other divine, are associated by this Divine 
paternity, under the one or single personality of 
the superior nature, as in our own dual constitution, 
our personality chiefly pertains to the soul, the supe- 
rior part. It should be noted that it is the single 
Divine personality of the Logos thus inclusive of 
both natures of whom the events and experiences of 
the entire earthly life of the Virgin-born Son of 
God are predicated. (1) Some of these predica- 
tions are literally of him only as man. (2) Some of 
him as God. (3) Others as God-man. 

The problem of incarnation is thus reduced to 
its ultimate and simplest terms, in the Virgin birth 
of the promised seed "born of woman/- or, as the 
old version has it, less correctly, "made of a wo- 
man." Such anthropologists as Huxley and Ro- 



THE ATONEMENT. 23 

manes, distinctly affirm that Virgin birth is compati- 
ble with valid and complete humanity." 

This incarnated personality, it is explicitly af- 
firmed in our Galatian text, "was bom under the 
law" (genomenon hupo noraon). However, the 
legal correspondence of the Virgin-born Son of God 
with the Edenic lapsed state of Adam under the 
dual claims of the broken law, is obvious. Christ 
was born, lived and died under the same broken 
law, as a. putative sinner, although He was the 
promised Messiah of Gen. 3 :15. When his birth took 
place, the law was a broken law, and to be under a 
broken law is to be subject to its dual claims, both 
preceptive and penal, that is, to be a sinner in some 
true sense, if it is the Moral Law of God. 

As has already been pointed out, a broken law 
has, upon all persons that are under and subject 
to it, the two-fold claim of its precept and of its 
penalty ; only a sinner in some true and real sense, 
could thus be subject to the broken law of God. As 
to the promised seed, Gen. 3 :15, the prophet Isaiah, 
53:6, distinctly says " Jehovah hath laid on him 
the iniquity of us all. " And under the stupendous 
burden of this imputed sin of our fallen race, the 
Son of God came into our world. Every child born 
of a human mother was born under or subject to the 
moral law, as constituted moral agents. 

*Prof Huxley wrote Dr. Gore, a churchman, and the biog- 
rapher of Prof. Darwin that "The mysteries of the church are 
child's play compared with the mystery of nature," referring 
to the Virgin Birth and resurrection; and Prof. G. J. Romanes, 
the scientist and friend of Charles Darwin, remarks: "Even 
if a virgin has ever conceived and borne a son, and even if 
such a fact in the human species has been unique, it would not 



24 THE ATONEMENT. 



betoken any breach of physiological continuity." Quoted from Dr. 
Orr's Virgin Birth, p. 222. And as discrediting the appeals to my- 
thology, Dr. Orr justly affirms: "It is the fact that no one of 
these tales had to do with a virgin birth in the sense in which 
alone, we are here concerned with it." Idem. p. 168. My broch- 
ure on the Virgin Birth read before the Presbyterian Minister's 
Association of Washington, D. C, and published in the Phila- 
delphia Presbyterian, October, 1916, and also in pamphlet. 

Prof. Huxley was not a Christian. In "Nature," London, 
Eng., about forty years ago, he avowed his belief that Chris- 
tianity is certainly doomed to ultimate failure. He repudiated 
the supernatural. He speaks in this matter simply as an an- 
thropologist; and yet the supernatural does no violence to na- 
ture. With some it is a part of nature. 



CHAPTER V. 

Vicarious Substitute — Mary's Confession and the 
Circumcision of Christ — Prof. Driver. 



A putative or a vicarious sinner is under as 
real and as valid obligations as the principal for 
whom he stands. He is on a footing like to that of 
a substitute in war, and his voluntarily assumed ac- 
cepted position is legal and not sentimental, not for 
moral influence nor to set an example, but to dis- 
charge an existing and urgent liability. 

On this vital point, of a likeness of the relation 
of the second Adam and the first Adam to the 
broken law, the offering of the birds by Mary, when 
properly considered, serves as a searchlight. In 
Lev. 12:6-8 we find the ceremonial law with which 
compliance is recorded in Luke 2:22-24. 

That Mary presented birds instead of a lamb, 
as the ceremonial law mercifully provided is famil- 
iarly and correctly referred to as scriptural evi- 
dence and confession of her poverty — a very real- 
istic and touching circumstance. 

But the most important and pathetic signifi- 
cance of this solemn transaction seems almost to 
escape attention. When she offered the first bird, 
it was a burnt offering and signified consuming 
personal devotion to the worship and service of the 

(25) 



26 Tin; ATONEMENT. 

God of the altar: but the second bird was a "sin 
offering," and when presented in sacrifice by her, 
it was an open and honest confession of sin for her- 
self and for her babe. 

Moreover, this babe, on the eighth day, was cir- 
cumcised and "everyone circumcised is a debtor to 
do the whole law." Gal. 5:3. Hence, Christ as 
a circumcised debtor to the whole broken law, was 
a sinner in some true sense; and of course puta- 
tively and representatively he owed it full satis- 
faction. It was on his thirty-third clay that his 
mother confessed their sin in offering the blood of 
the second bird. We may say that the babe took 
the position of the mother, just as Hagar's child 
took the servile status of its mother ; if the mother 
was a bondwoman, the child was born in bondage; 
and so, if the mother was a sinner, the babe was also 
a sinner. This is the very meaning of original sin. 
The Saviour was by birth an original sinner, puta- 
tively or by imputation But not personally. 

Prof. Driver, well known as "a higher critic," 
commenting on the text and contents of Isaiah 53:6, 
in regard to the promised Messiah, says (I quote 
his exact language and the underscoring' is his) : "It 
will be observed that the idea of vicarious suffering 
is here distinctly enunciated;" (he continues), "the 
subject of the prophecy suffers not with the guilty 
(involved witli them in common catastrophe), but 
for them." I may add that this professor points 
out that these associated chapters of Isaiah, no less 
than twelve times designate the Messiah as a vi- 
carious sufferei'. I quote Professor Driver for what 
his testimony is worth, for it is entitled in this ense 
)<> (he inosi serious consideration. 



CHAPTER VI. 

Self-Redemption — Sermon on the Mount— Vi i w 
Worthy of Consideration — Important Testi- 
mony — Precept Completely Met — ' ' I Am. ' ' 



If imputed righteousness renders the guilty 
putatively but not personally righteous, as in jus- 
tification, then the imputed sin renders the right- 
eous subject putatively though not morally a sinner. 
This is exactl} r the condition in which Jesus Christ 
was born. Instead of being born "without sin," 
as the Catechism (Q. 22) erroneously states, no 
child was ever born of a human mother or lay in her 
bosom under such a load of (imputed) sin ; and hence 
it becomes obvious that the saving of himself from 
this load of sin, set down to his personal account 
and voluntarily assumed, was necessary as the pre- 
liminary condition of preparation for his saving 
others. Physician, heal thyself! Self deliverance 
must precede altruistic deliverance. 

But how can this personal self deliverance be 
accomplished? Surely not by the exercise of Al- 
mighty power arbitrarily and irrationally brushing 
aside the claims of God's justice and broken law. 
This would have been simply an irrational and 
suicidal display of unbecoming violence and incon- 
sistent arbitrariness, unlike the ways of God to man. 

(27) 



28 



THE ATONEMENT. 



Manifestly, this deliverance could be accomplished 
wisely and justly, only by satisfying the just claims 
of the broken law. It becomes us, then, to ascertain 
whether this was done by Jesus in redeeming him- 
self from under the broken law, 

(1) First of all, then, was the claim of the pre- 
cepl of the law fully satisfied by him? It is my de- 
liberate opinion, that the leading- criterion by which 
we may safely and satisfactorily judge of his com- 
pliance with the precept unbroken, is the evidential 
summary of the pertinent recorded incidents of our 
sketch of His life, but especially the so-called sermon 
on the Mount. The explanation of the law in this 
so-called sermon, was given by the Saviour in the 
midst of his ministry, as indicating not simply a 
matter of expository, didactic or exegetical instruc- 
tion, touching the profound and searching spiritual 
import of the claims of the precept of the moral law, 
as beyond the perfect observance or possible compli- 
ance of fallen humanity; but rather and in particu- 
lar as indicating and proclaiming the spiritual and 
truthfully perfect sense in which he himself under- 
took to keep it, and in fact and beyond question did 
thus keep its precepts perfectly. See explicit state- 
ment of the B. V., Mat. 5:17. 

This I conceive to be the true import of that 
Scripture. It bears study and reflection. Such an 
undertaking would have been, as we well know, 
rash and hopeless for any fallen personal sinner! 
All that was required of Adam by the covenant of 
works in his state of innocence, was compliance 
with the precept alone of the unbroken law. The 
command not to eat of the forbidden tree was a 
concession of ability and a test of obedience, and 



THE ATONEMENT. 29 

our innocent first parents, by their confession, failed 
of compliance, (Gen. 2-17. 3:12-13; James 2:10; Gal 

3:10;) how much more likely the failure of any of 
their fallen and enfeebled descendants to satisfy the 
claims of the broken law. Eve, it is true, was mis- 
led by deception, but Adam was not deceived (1 
Tim. 2:13-14), and only omniscience is a perfectly 
sure discerning guarantee against the wiles of sin 
and Satan. The second Adam, under the broken 
law, had to comply with its precept and also with its 
penalty. "For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ 
shall all be made alive, but each in his own order." 
(I Cor. 15:22.) i. e. only in Christ. 

It was the avowal of this Divine incarnate per- 
son: "I seek not my own will but the will of him 
who sent me." John 5:30. Again: "I delight to do 
thy will, my God!" In reference to the pre- 
cept of the law, the Saviour also remarks: "Yea, 
thy law is written within my heart." Ps. 40:8. 
"The law of his God is in his heart." Ps. 37:31. 

In his character and life he knew no sin, he 
was "holy, harmless and undefiled, separate from 
sinners." Heb. VII :26. There are thirteen of his 
prayers recorded in the gospels, each of them in 
few words except John, chap. 17 ; and in no one of 
them does he, in a single instance, confess sin, or 
imply it as part of his experience. He silences his 
enemies with the challenge: "Which of you con- 
vince th me of sin?" John 8:46. And he positively 
and broadly affirms: "He that sent me hath not 
left me alone, for I do always the things pleasing to 
him." John 9 :46-49. 

In several instances he plainly claims to be the 
incarnated, sinless Jehovah. John 8:28. "Jesus 



30 



THE ATONEMENT. 



therefore said: "When ye have lifted up the Son 

of man, then shall ye know that I am he, and that 
I do nothing of myself, but as the Father taught 
me, 1 speak these things." John 8:58. Jesus 
Bid unto them: "Verily, verily, I say unto you, 
before Abraham was horn, I am." John 13:19. 
"From henceforth, I tell you before it comes to 
pass, that, when it conies to pass, ye may believe 
that I am he." 

In these passages, the "I am" (Gr. ego eimi) 
is a reassertion by the Saviour to be Jehovah of the 
Old Testament claim in Ex. 3:14. "And God said 
unto Moses, "I AM THA.T I AM," and He said: 
• ' Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I 
AM hath sent me unto you." The "I AM" in 
these passages of the Old and New Testaments is 
identically the same personality in the original 
Hebrew and Greek languages. The name Jehovah 
is from the Hebrew "Havah," "to be," and occurs 
the first time in Gen. 2:4, and is repeated 6823 times 
in the Hebrew Bible, and, as is always proper with 
I 'rope]- Names, in translating any book, Jehovah is 
transferred and not translated and occurs the same 
number of times in the Revised Version. This 
proper name of the God worshipped by Christians 
is not adequately represented by our word "Lord," 
which designates simply a superior over subordi- 
nates. It is from the verb "to be," and designates 
the incommunicable self-existence and eternity of 
His Bein It is the common designation of the 
covenant relation of our God to His people, and is 
never in a single instance, used or predicated of any 
other being. 



Tin: A rONBMEE r. 31 

The literal meaning of "Elohim," (El), prop- 
erly rendered "God," is "power/' and is closely 

related to the Allah of fatalistic Mohammedanism; 

but it occurs less than half as of I en as Jehovah, 
and with less restrietion. It sometimes designates 
angels or other powerful spirits. 

Without pursuing this matter in detail, which 
would be an impossibility in this connection, let a 
general confirmatory citation suffice, as follows 
(Luke 2:11): "For there is born to you this day 
in the city of David, a Saviour, who is Christ the 
Lord." This message of the angel to the shepherds 
has a most unique and pertinent significance, for 
"Christ the Lord," literally signifies "the anointed 
Jehovah. " (Appendix D.)* 



*It strictly brings to light the broad New Testament fact, 
that should (as I think) have appeared in the New Version, that 
the Lord Jesus Christ is the incarnated Jehovah. In that case 
the confession of Thomas would stand: "My Jehovah and my 
God." John 20:28. It is believed that this line of instruc- 
tion validly brings to light, in an unanswerable form, the 
Deity of our Saviour, the incarnated Son of God, in whom dwelt 
all the fulness of the Godhead bodily. (Col. 1:19.) This is suf- 
ficient to intimate his claim. 



CHAPTER VII. 

The Penalty — "Subely Die" — Six a Capital Crime 
ix God's Government — Definition of Sin — 
Apo61 i-i:'s ( Irbed — Crucifixion — Justin Martyr 
— Ter'i ti.lian — Tiberius — Worship of Emperor 
— Christianity a Religio Illicita — Polycarp — 
Forecasts of the Crucifixion. 



(2) Accepting as reasonably satisfactory the 
evidence that the incarnate Son of God satisfied 
the Divine precept, the only remaining inquiry pos- 
sible, in order to his rescue from under the broken 
law, is whether he also satisfied its penalty, or penal 
claims. We have already seen that the penal ele- 
ment is as essential an element and constituent of 
a law as its precept. The penalty of the moral 
law of the Edenic covenant of works, violated by 
man was "death." Here is its language: "In the 
day that thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die" 
(I lob.)— dying thou shalt die. (jGeii. 2:1.7). This 
announcement, it will be noticed, is idiomatically 
emphasized — "thou shalt surely die." Thus, sin is 
clearly declared a capital offense in the government 
and society of God. And as such it is the analogue 
of the deepest dyed crime of human government. 
The Scripture saith: "The wages of sin is death;" 
Rom. 6:23; also "The soul that sinneth, it shall 

(32) 



Tin: a r<-\ i. KENT. 

die." The eating of the forbidden tree was an acl 
disobedience or Bin; and the penalty of this dis- 
obedience was foreannounced as death. Gen, 2:17. 
Tl nol annihilated by bodily death, nor 

does the soul cease to be by Spiritual death, but its 
i ritual activities are paralyzed. The soul of man 
in its natural estate is seemingly as Insensible to the 
appalling spiritual conflict raging on this earth as a 
Mind and deaf man on the battlefield to the raging 
conflict. The deadening influence of sin beggars 
description and creates Hell. 

It behooves us to ascertain the meaning of 
death in this penalty. It is certain that it does not 
mean annihilation, for man survived the act. In- 
deed there is no instance in the Bible in which death 
means annihilation. It certainly does mean bodily 
separation from the soul and much more. This we 
have already seen illustrated by Adam's conduct in 
hiding himself in the garden of Eden, from the pres- 
ence of Jehovah, after his disobedience; and, in 
subsequent Scripture, it is a familiar representation 
of man, in his natural condition that he is in a state 
of alienation or death in some true sense, and that 
use is the spiritual sense as in the following ex- 
amples (Ephesians 2:1): "And you did he make 
alive when ye were dead through your trespasses 
and sin;" and again, verse 5: "Even when we 
were dead through our trespasses, made us alive to- 
gether with Christ, (by grace have ye been saved)." 

Without needless citations, the following pas- 
sage from Eomans 5:13 will suffice: "Therefore, as 
through one man sin entered into the world and 



34 THE ATONEMENT. 

death through sin: and BO death passed upon all 
men, for that all sinned. " 

The concept of spiritual death is not easy of at- 
tainment. To take a ease of actual physical death, 

analogies are most helpful. Take a case from 
the held of battle. When the living soldier is 
stricken down, his bodily sensibilities take no far- 
ther account of the moving masses, of the word of 
command, of the explosions, of the rattle of small 
arms and the booming cannon; the shouts and 
clamor of victory or the groans and shrieks of the 
dying. There is no more recognition of any conflict 
or living experience of it. This is consequent on 
the dissolution of soul and body. 

In like manner, there is a spiritual warfare 
as deadly, raging on this earth and the sensibilities 
of the natural man are in no way affected by it. His 
indifference to spiritual matters is the experience of 
a soul dead and not alive to such things. The prim- 
ary purpose and effort of the publication of the 
gospel of Chris! ; s to awaken man from a state of 
spiritual death <md indifference to a live interest 
in things pertaining to God and his own eternal 
interests. 

The following accordant definition of sin is 
taught in the schools of Germany: "Alles, was uns 
von Gtoti trennt, ist Siinde." — " Whatever separates 
as from (iod is sin." This is excessive in extension; 
while finiteness separates and distinguishes us from 
God, it is not inherently sinful. The Westminster 
Catechism definition is better, viz.: "Sin is any 
want of conformity unto, or transgression of, the 
law of God." The law of God is a truthful tram 



Tin: a i oxi: mint. 3g 

script or expression, not only of I lis will, hut of the 
justice and the rectitude of His changeless nature. 

It constitutes the very atmosphere of our moral 
environment and the practical and proximate 
foundation of moral order. The slightest perturba- 
tion thereof is a discordant note in the music of 
the spiritual sphere of the universe. The story of 
Eden gives us the hest view of the nature of sin. 

The so-called Apostles' Creed has been, through- 
out Christendom, universally accepted for more 
than twelve hundred years without question, as 
embracing the six redemptive acts of Jesus Christ, 
which are thus enumerated. (1) Born of Mary, the 
virgin; (2) Crucified under Pontius Pilate;" (3) 
On the third day risen from the dead ; (4) Ascen- 
sion into the heavens; (5) Seated on the right 
hand of the Father; (6) Thence he shall come 
to judge the living and the dead. 

The incarnation or supernatural virgin-birth 
is the first and is virtually comprehensive of all 
the others. The second: "He was crucified under 
Pontius Pilate." The crucifixion is a transeendent- 
ly verified historical event and is abundantly proved, 
relative to which the following floating and perhaps 
veritable tradition is submitted: Scholars are of 
opinion that Pilate did communicate with the Emper- 
or Tiberius concerning our Lord. It was part of his 
duty as pro-consul, to report such occurrences. Be- 
sides, we have two statements to that effect of un. 
doubted weight. One is from Justin Martyr (about 
150-153 A. D.), in his apology or defense of Chris- 
tianity addressed to Antoninus Pius (138-161 A. D.), 
which speaks of Pilate's official report. (Appendix 
E.) 



36 THK ATONEMENT. 

The other is from Tertullian, about 200 A. D. 
Tertullian was a lawyer, when converted from 
heathenism and idolatry, and is the earliest church- 
writer preserved in Latin. lie says: "Tiberius 

(14 B. C. to 37 A. D.) under whom the name of 
Christian spread abroad throughout the world, when 
this doctrine was announced to him from Palestine, 
where it first began, communicated with the Senate; 
but the Senate as they had not proposed the meas- 
ure, refused it (i. e., refused to proclaim Christ a 
Cod)." 

The complimentary pretext for this was, that 
it would he discourteous to proclaim Christ a God, 
before they had thus proclaimed the Emperor him- 
self. All the gods were tolerated by Rome, in their 
own countries, hut to be worshipped in the city 
of Rome, they had to be approved by the Senate. 
But Christ was no candidate for, nor recipient of, 
worldly honors. Even the amiable and much 
praised Antoninus, (161-180, A. D.) the statesman 
and stoic philosopher, was a bitter persecutor of 
Christianity was decreed a religio illicita — an un- 
tolerated. 

This actual or supposed proposal to deify Christ 
would have been an act tolerating Christianity, by 
enrolling Christ among the gods who might be wor- 
shipped in the city of Rome. 

However, propagandism, an essential of Chris- 
tianity, was not allowed by Roman Law and hence, 
Christianity. No propagandism of any religion was 
lawful religion. And as such it was legally perse- 
cuted by imperial sanction, in order to its suppres- 
sion. This situation was aggravated by the mono- 



1 BE ATONEMENT. 37 

theism of Christians, and their refusal to worship 
the Emperor, whereas, the religion D f the Roman 
people was, without a known exception, polytheistic 

and incompatible with Christianity. The case of 
Polycarp (martyred c. 155 A D.), the Bishop of 
Smyrna, is a case in point. He refused to drop a 
pinch of incense on the altar fire before the image 
of Caesar, as an act worshipping the Emperor, say- 
ing in response to the demand of the official, "eighty 
and six years have I worshipped my master, Jesus 
Christ, and I cannot desert him now. ' ' 

155-69-89 A. D., so that Polycarp carries us 
very near to the time of the Saviour. 

He was then rudely cast out of the conveyance 
of the official in which he was being conveyed to the 
place of execution, bound on the funeral pyre of 
greenwood and burnt as a Christian martyr. * 

Polycarp protested to his persecutors that they 
did not need to bind him. The location of the fire 
is still pointed out to travellers. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

( ' aksarea philippi mount of transfiguration 

Egypt — Exodus — Wilderness — Fidelity — 
Epiphanies of Jehovah — Visit of Moses and 
Elijah — The Angel in the Garden— Saviour's 
Prayer Denied — Ventriloquism — Crucifixion 



Indeed, it is sufficiently evident that the Savi- 
our's death by violence, and even on the cross, was 
to himself no surprise — yet the cross was quite as 
disgraceful then, as the gallows now. To be cruci- 
fied was then as degrading as hanging now. — In my 
New Testament study, I have noticed perhaps a 
dozen references in his brief public career to, or 
forecasts of, the character and circumstances of his 
death and resurrection. I will briefly note two in- 
stances: (1) At Caesarea-Philippi (Matt. 16:21; 
Mark 8:31; Luke 9:22), referring to this forecast, 
-aid : "The Son of man must suffer many things 
and be rejected of the elders and chief priests and 
scribes, and be killed and the third day be raised 
up." This is a perfectly explicit anticipation of the 
horrors of his crucifixion and prediction of his resur- 
rection. (2) The Mount of Transfiguration. In 
thai remote and isolated localitv, Moses and Elijah 

(38) 



THE ATONEMENT. 39 

met him who 1400 and 800 years previously had 
been respectively commissioned of Him as the lead- 
ers of his people in the most trying exigencies of 
their public life. The presence of Moses was a suf- 
ficient reason for his approaching departure, being 
viewed and spoken of as an "exodus," like the exo- 
dus of Israel from the bondage of Egypt. 

Hence, their conversation evidently and chiefly 
turned upon his near and anticipated crucifixion, 
(Luke 9:31) and identified him with the people of 
Israel in their redemptive deliverance or "exodus" 
(Gr.) from Egypt. Evidently it was implied that 
his sojourn on earth was viewed as an Egyptian 
bondage. Hence, in Phil. 2:7, he is, a "Doulos" — 
a bond-slave or servant of the broken law. Though, 
naturally, and not hy any usurpation, or act of 
violence, on an equality with the other persons of 
the Godhead, he had voluntarily emptied or hum- 
bled himself, and became like man as a bondman or 
a bond-slave or servant of the broken law. Pharaoh 
had no color of right to the Israelites as slaves, for 
they had been gratefully received as guests at first. 
But the bondage of sinful mlan to Moral Law is abso- 
lutely just. Though, naturally, and not 'by any usur- 
pation, or act of ambitious violence, on an "equal- 
ity" with the other persons of the Godhead, he had 
voluntarily emptied or humbled himself, and be- 
come like man as a bondsman or bond-slave under 
the broken law, as a putative sinner; and, in re- 
deeming himself he became obedient even unto death, 
"yea, the death of the cross." So horrid that He 
wept and experienced a bloody sweat: three times 
he prays for deliverance but is firmly refused. Then, 



40 THE ATONEMENT. 

with ready submission, Be acquiesced, "Not my 
will bu1 thine be done." The historic vindication of 
Gen, 2:17 and the refutation of the slanderous blas- 
phemy of Satan, Gen. 3:4, allow of no possible es- 
cape. This vindication of the truth of Jehovah and 
falsity of Satan demand the death on the Cross as 
a historic event. And, as forecasting his compe- 
tence to effect his own redemption, he was reminded 
that he had gloriously redeemed the people of God 
from their cruel, satanic, Egyptian bondage, through 
the agency of Moses ; and hence, these distinguished 
heavenly visitors. Thus, in his present dire pros- 
pect of the cross, these heavenly messengers en- 
couraged him from his Jehovistic reminiscence, by 
the Egyptian experience in the past, — the most 
stupendous and glorious event, excepting only the 
creation — to anticipate a still more glorious and 
spiritual deliverance now of himself and of his 
people, from the cruel bondage of Satan by fully 
meeting, not only the preceptive, but also the penal 
claims of inexorable justice against the sinner. This 
3-fold Gethsemane prayer marks the climax of His 
earthly temptation. Heb. 5:7-10. This temptation 
was tlie great crisis, but the presence of glorified 
saints and angels, the voice of the Father, and the 
support of the ever present Paraclete, the "Eternal 
Spirit," sustained the incarnate Son of God, as a 
putative sinner because the iniquity or sin of us 
all had been laid on or imputed to Him, so that He 
freely acquiesces in the penalty of sin, when thou- 
sands of angels stood ready to rescue Him at a 
word, and thus extinguished or satisfied the penalty, 
in vindication of the truthfulness of the Word of 



THE ATONEMENT. 41 

God to our first parents, that if they sinned, they 
should surely die, and forever stamped under foot 
the blasphemous and malignant lie of Satan, in de- 
nial of this Word of God, that death would be the 
penalty of sinning-. The blood of Christ is distinctly 
recognized as of more value in vindication of this 
Word of God than the blood of all the animal sacri- 
fices in all the intervening centuries. Heb. 9:12. 
His blood and not that of animals, adequately sym- 
bolized the death pronounced on sin. Gen. 2-17. 

Surely it should not escape attention that the 
redemption now in contemplation by the crucifixion, 
and well under way, was supremely important and 
vastly greater and more difficult than that from 
Egypt. It involved His self redemption or rescue 
of the incarnated son of God himself, from a de- 
graded and humiliating state of bondage, voluntarily 
assumed and heroically undertaken, as simply a 
necessary condition and preparation for this al- 
truistic rescue of countless immortal souls from sin 
and endless misery. What an unparalleled spec- 
tacle of unselfish devotion to the good of inferiors ! 
In the Egyptian deliverance there were at most it 
is estimated, only about three million bond-slaves 
immediatelv delivered; and no such alternative as 
that the Jehovistic rescuer himself, as one of the 
bondmen, should rescue himself in order to rescue 
others from the galling bondage and thereby open 
wide the door for the ultimate escape of his fellow 
bondmen. This identification of Christ as a putative 
sinner, with the bondmen of Jehovah's broken law, 
is not only unique, but the unspeakable wonder of 
the Universe. 



42 THE ATONEMENT. 

The Israelites in Egypt were not domestic 

slaves, owned by private masters and living in 
the families of the country; but they were govern- 
ment bondmen of Pharaoh, who had forgotten the 
original hospitality accorded to Joseph and his kin- 
folk, in grateful recognition of his services in avert- 
ing the utter ruin of the country by famine. The 
Pharaoh had ungratefully and selfishly converted 
the honored guests into slaves. The Pharaoh there- 
fore had no color of right as a royal master. The 
deliverance was from a cruel tyrant without any 
show of right or justice or claim to remuneration 
for service. The deliverance was, therefore, a sim- 
ple and justifiable exercise of power without re- 
muneration, rescuing the wronged and oppressed 
from an ungrateful tyrant. The claim of the Moral 
Law on man and on every moral agent in the uni- 
verse is based on inexorable justice. 

The exhibition of almightiness in the punish- 
ment of the wrong and of vindicating the right, in 
the ten plagues and other miracles, such as passing 
through the sea dry-shod, bringing forth a stream 
of needed water from the flinty rock and supplying 
in the wilderness the bread from heaven for forty 
years, was a reminder of Jehovah's superiority, not 
only to nature and all heathen gods, but also to the 
nations of the earth, that caused their hearts to melt 
within them as depicted by Rahab to the spies in 
Jericho (Joshua 2:9-12) ; and also in several glori- 
ous psalms, such as the 77th, 104th and 1.05th. This 
deliverance of Israel from Egypt was such a dis- 
play of the overruling presence of Jehovah in na- 



THE ATONEMENT. 43 

ture and among the nations as had never been known 
and has never been repeated. 

But underneath all this amazing exhibition of 
power and retributive justice, was the moral motive 
of God's fidelity in maintaining the word (Ex. 6 :4-8) 
of his covenant with Abraham, that his descendants 
should possess as a home, the land of Canaan, 
11 flowing with milk and honey." It was the same 
Jehovah who led Moses by the pillar of cloud by 
day and of fire by night, with whom Moses and 
Elijah now talked on the Mount. Asaph sings: 
"Thou leddest thy people like a flock" (Ps, 77:20) 
1 ' by the hand of Moses and Aaron. ' ' 

That the epiphanous cloud by day and of fire by 
night was a manifestation of Jehovah's personal 
presence, the descriptive language of Scripture 
makes perfectly evident. It habitually speaks of 
the cloud as a personal presence. (Ex. 24:15-17.). 
"And God remembered his covenant with Abraham, 
with Isaac and wdth Jacob. ' ' 

Such was the tragical and awful crisis prior to 
the crucifixion — "Exodus," — that it occasioned this 
interview with Moses and Elijah. So much greater 
was it than the Egyptian crisis that the Son of 
God incarnate indicated he needed this word of en- 
couragement from these exalted heavenly messen- 
gers, evidently sent by the Father, for the Son had 
well known these faithful ones publicly in his pre- 
existent state and now recognized them. The visit 
of these glorified patriarchs was undoubtedly more 
sympathetic, befitting and strengthening than would 
have been a visit of angels. (Appendix F.) In the 
beginning of his public ministry and on the eve of 



44 I ill. ATONEMENT. 

the great temptation a like recognition was given. 
(Luke 3:22.) "And the Holy Spirii ended in 

a bodily form, as a dove, niton him, and a voice 
came oul of heaven: Thou arl my beloved Son, in 
thee I am well pleased." H e , as Jehovah, knew 
them of old and had had previous experience of 
their devotion and service. Perhaps, in like 
manner, not the least encouragement on this oc- 
casion of the Saviour on the Mount, was the Fa- 
ther's open and audible avowal of his paternity 
and of Christ's sonship ; Lnke 9:35 "This is my 
Son, my chosen, hear ye him." 

hater on, in the (Garden, an angelic support was 
considerately extended, which would not have heen 
given had it not also heen needed to dry his tears 
and to avert the possibility of an overwhelming dis- 
tress. But, now in the end of his earthly ministry, 
we have added to all these adverse experiences the 
penal horrors of the cross, in satisfaction of the ex- 
plicit penal claim of the law; and an angel messen- 
ger was sent to strengthen him at the time when his 
prayers were denied. The terrors of the violent 
public death, in comparison with which the ten 
plagues and miracles of the Egyptian deliverance 
and "exodus" were trifles, loomed up before him 
throughout his self-possessed and quietly ordered 
and calmly disposed ministry. He experienced and 
at times manifested the most delicate sensibilities of 
normal humanity, as is plainly indicated to us in the 
language of He 1 ). 5:7: "Who, in the days of his 
flesh, having offered up prayers and supplications 
with strong crying and tears unto him that was able 



THE atom: mi: xt. 45 

to save him Prom death/' i. e., the only possible de- 
liverer. 

The prayer of Christ in Gethsemane distinctly 
submitted to the Father the possibility of averting 

the horrors of the penal death on the cross which 
was urgently repeated three times; and on its re- 
fusal, Christ made the submissive and filial re- 
sponse: "Not my will but thine be done!" In- 
deed, we are explicitly informed that the Saviour 
viewed the visitation of the penalty of the law as 
so terrible, that with strong cries and tears he ap- 
pealed for an escape from it, if possible, which was 
inflexibly denied. It was in this extremity that the 
angel was sent to him in the Garden. " Death,' ? 
in some true sense now T to be realized was the ex- 
plicitly adjudged penalty verbally denied by Satan 
(Gen. 3:4.) "And the serpent said unto the woman, 
ye shall not surely die." This blasphemously and 
explicitly charged God with falsehood and decep- 
tion. 

Although he deemed it no disloyal usurpation 
to assume and claim "equality" with the other per- 
sons of the Trinity (Phil., 2:5-6), "yet gently bear- 
ing with the sinful, the ignorant, and the erring" 
(Heb- 3:10; 4:2) "he emptied himself and stooped 
from this supreme state of existence and became in 
human nature an equal sharer of the curse and 
the consequent sinless experiences of fallen human- 
ity, even himself being a vicarious sin-bearer and 
bondservant of the broken law, becoming obedient 
thereunto death, yea, the death of the cross." 
Doubtless his covenant stipulation of penal satis- 
faction for sin included his humiliation to our fallen 



46 THE ATONEMENT. 

state and all hia adverse providential experiences, as 

though a personal sinner, from his virgin-birth to 
his ascension, must be reckoned with as penal. 

It adds nothing to speak of these experiences 
as a passive satisfaction, for they were voluntarily 
endured. 

What a tragico-dramatic vista between the 
decree of assassination by Herod, in his early in- 
fancy and wicked Pilate's self-condemning delivery 
of him, in his innocent young manhood, to the 
Roman soldiers to be mocked, bnffetted, spit upon, 
scourged and crucified between two thieves! Pilate 
thus confessed a violation of his conscience by 
yielding to an official threat of the mob, to prefer 
the charge of treason before the Emperor if he 
(Pilate) refused to crucify him; after having seven 
times pronounced him innocent to this mob. By 
his own seven-fold confession and declaration 
Pilate was a coward and truckling murderer in 
crucifying Jesus. Pilate seven times pronounced 
him innocent and nine times urged his deliverance 
or release on that account; not to speak of the 
mockery, taunts and jeers and cruel sufferings of 
the crucifixion. The gruesome story of these penal 
afflictions is a sad recital too familiar and painful 
to need more repetition here. 

He thus finally won the acceptance and approval 
by tlie Father of his perfect compliance with the in- 
exorable precept and penalty of the broken law. 

Assuredly his death was not the death of a 
martyr! From Stephen onward no martyr ever 
had occasion to cry aloud in the midst of his tor- 
tures: "My God, my God; why hast thou forsaken 



THE ATOXKMEXT. 47 

me? Eloi, eloi, lama sabachthanif ' "God never 
forsook the martyred." But the experiences of 
the martyr has been the realization of the bless- 
edness of the Aaronic benediction (Num. 6:24). 
"Jehovah bless and keep thee, Jehovah make his 
face to shine upon thee, and be gracious unto thee. 
Jehovah lift up his countenance upon thee and 
give thee peace." 

In the arena, on the cross, or on the blazing 
pyre, no such cry was ever heard. The triumphant 
and exultant death shout of martyrs so impressed 
the heathen, that many were prompted to seek it 
by suicidal impulse. 

This tragical and most real bloody death was 
in literal fulfillment of the divine decree suspended 
over the first sin: "In the day thou eatest thereof, 
thou shalt surely die:" This explicit and verbal 
fulfillment was all important, for it was these very 
words of God that Satan, the fallen archangel and 
Serpent impiously belied when he said unto the 
woman: "Ye shall not surely die." 

What the Church and the individual needs, is 
the plain fulfillment of this Scripture as understood 
and explained by the simple-minded reader — not the 
speculations of theological and metaphysical exploi- 
tation. One of the supreme features of the Bible is 
its self -explanation. "The entrance of Thy Word 
giveth light." Psalm 119:130. 

By means of his marvelous imitation and power 
of transformation, or probably still more deceptive- 
ly working by ventriloquism, the Serpent, known 
hitherto by Eve as a dumb animal brute, both spoke 
her language and reasoned with the intelligence of 



48 Tin: ATONEMENT. 

an angel. Satan confidently addressed Eve, giving 
her an amazing sensible proof of the effect of the 
eating of tin* tree, in his claiming by eating it 
this intelligence. And when Eve, supposed by his 
eating it, that this beautiful fruit was good for 
food, and was to lie desired to make one wise, she 
took' of the fruit thereof and did eat, and she gave 
also unto her husband and he did eat. 
"Forth reaching to the fruit, she plucked, she eat. 
Earth felt the wound, and Nature from her seat, 
Sighing through all her works, gave signs of woe, 
That all was lost. "— Milton, Book IV. 

It was with reference to this impious and 
blasphemous contradiction of God's words, and the 
plausible, subtle and malicious deception of Eve 
that the Saviour uttered, as recorded in John 8:44- 
45, the severest denunciation ever pronounced: 
"Ye are of your father the Devil and the lusts of 
your father ye will do. He was a murderer from 
the beginning and abode not in the truth, because 
there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, 
lie speaketh his own, — for he is a liar and the 
father of it. And because I tell you the truth, ye 
believe me not." This utterance of the Saviour 
shows the criminality of sin. 

In the whole procedure of satisfaction of the 
broken law to "redeem them that were under the 
Law, by the .Jehovah Christ, that we might receive 
the adoption of sons," there is no severer and 
more merited denunciation found than this. No 
event of his life is so emphatically conspicuous as 
this death of Christ by crucifixion. But it must be 
especially noticed, that the Saviour himself as a 



THE ATONEMENT. 49 

putative Binner, as previously shown, was one of 
those under the broken law, "at the lime of the 

crucifixion," to be thus redeemed. Gal. -1:4. Re- 
specting' the redemption of others than himself, the 
Apostle Peter addressed the dispersed followers of 
Christ as knowing of this redemption thus: "Know- 
ing that ye were redeemed, not with corruptible 
things, with silver or gold, but with precious blood 
as of a lamb without blemish and without spot, even 
the blood of Christ who was foreknown indeed be- 
fore the foundation of the world but manifested at 
the end of time for your sake." (Peter 2:18-21.) 

By synecdoche, one of the most familiar figures 
of human languages, and of frequent use in our 
sacred Scriptures, by which figure a part is taken 
for the whole; "The blood of Christ" is taken as 
symbolizing the entire work of redemption and 
salvation, with special stress on the penal side of 
the law. It is a shocking, a horrifying figurative ex- 
pression fully entitled to careful explanation to 
every individual and congregation, but no more hor- 
rifying than Sin to God. For example : ' i His grace 
wherein He hath made us accepted in His Beloved 
in whom we have redemption through his blood" 
(Eph. 1:6-7) ; and again (John 1:7) : "The blood 
of Jesus his Son cleanses us fromi all sin." Thus 
we see that blood stands for both justification and 
sanctification ; i. e., for the legal work of Christ 
and the regenerating and sanctifying work of the 
Holy Spirit, as collateral with the legal satisfaction 
of the second person. 

I am surprised and pleased to find in a recent 
number of the Jewish Evangelist, October, 1,913, — 



50 THE ATONEMENT, 

published in Brooklyn, X. Y., which I've taken for 

years — the following group of references touching 

this matter: 

We Bee what God says about the blood: 
Lev. 17:11, "The blood maketh an atonement 
for the soul.' 

"Heb. 9:14? 'The blood of Christ purge 
your conscience.' 

"John 1:7: 'The blood of Jesus Christ , . . 
cleanseth of all sin.' 

"Matt. 26:28: 'My blood . . . shed for 
remission of sins.' 

"1 Peter 1:19: 'Redeemed with the precious 
blood of Christ. 5 

"Eph. 1:1: 'Redemption through his blood.' 

"Eom. 3:25: 'A propitiation through faith 
in his blood.' 

"Rev. 1:5-6: 'Washed us from our sins in 
his own blood.' 

"Col. 1:20: "Made peace through the blood 
of his cross.' 
"Rom. 5:9: 'Justified by his blood." 

It is of special importance to take distinct 
note of the circumstance, that all the passages that 
speak of the blood are indicative of penal satisfac- 
tion of the broken law of God, and of the literal 
penalty of death, as the penalty of eating of the 
forbidden tree. The language, Gen. 2:17, has not 
only a literal but a transcendant spiritual signifi- 
cance and in its full import shows that our Redeem- 
er, in a literal, true, scriptural sense, has perfectly 



THE ATONEMENT. Si 

satisfied the penal as he did the preceptive claims of 
the broken lav:, as a putative sinner. "And Je- 
hovah hath laid on him the iniquity of us all." (Isa. 
53:6.) 

I now feel fully warranted in affirming that 
sufficient scriptural evidence has been submitted in 
proof that our virgin-born Redeemer has perfectly 
satisfied according to scripture both the preceptive 
and the penal claims of the broken law of God, to 
sweep away all scepticism and satisfy every earnest 
inquirer that Jesus Christ satisfied all the claims of 
the broken law. 

Now consider: Did he do that for his own 
sake or for the sake of others? For his own sake, 
doubtless, as a putative and representative sinner 
in behalf of others. The Bible teaching is that: 
"God the Father hath made him to be sin (i. e., a 
putative sinner), for us, who knew no sin, that we 
might be made the righteousness of God in him." 
2 Cor. 5:21. This satisfaction of the 'broken law 
of God constituted the righteousness of Christ 
that effected his self redemption from under the 
broken law and altruistic redemption of all others 
to whom it may be credited or imputed. By defini- 
tion, legal righteousness is that which satisfies the 
claims of laiv, broken or unbroken, human or divine. 

In anticipation of this wonderful service of the 
incarnate Son of God, the prophet used the follow- 
ing language about six hundred years before the 
advent: "This is his name whereby he shall be 
called, Jehovah, our righteousness." (Jeremiah 
23:6.) "Therefore, as through one man sin en- 
tered into the world and death by sin * 



52 THE ATONEMENT. 

for as through the one man's disobedience the 
many were made sinners, even so through the 
dience of the one shall the many be made right- 
eous.'' Romans 5:12, 10. "By being clothed with 
the righteousness of Christ, not having a righteous- 
ness of mine own, which is by the law, but that which 
is by faith in Christ; the righteousness which is 
from God by faith." Phil. 3:9, Rom., Chap. 10. 



I think there is sufficient reason for noticing the distinction 
between the bloody and the un-bloody procedures of the Atone- 
ment, as illustrated by the two goats. The first goat was a 
bloody offering and holds up to view the legal satisfaction of 
the Logos on the Cross, which was the fulfillment of the origi- 
nal warning, Gen. 2-17: "in the day thou eatest thereof, thou 
shalt surely die," the blood here, symbolizing death. The other 
goat represents the bloodless procedure of the Holy Spirit, in 
cleansing the soul from the impurities of sin. The plain 
recognition of this distinction thus illustrated, may relieve some 
minds touching this most tragic feature of the Gospel. 



CHAPTER IX. 

Unique Messiah— High Priest— Why He Came to 
the Human Race— Faith— Functions oe a 
Priest— Sacrifice — Intercession — Explanation 

op Justifying Righteousness — Imputation 

Egoistic Sacrifice— Imputed and not Personal 
Sin— Dual Significance of His Sacrifice- 
Priority of Significance and Efficiency. 



Tlie account just briefly rendered of the service 
of (Jehovah) Jesus Christ in satisfying the dual 
claims of the 'broken law of God, under which He 
was born and lived and died is a most unique 
transaction. It has no parallel in the history or 
the literature of the world. 

We have seen the distinct scriptural evidences 
that he came as the promised Messiah of Israel; 
(Gen. 3:15) originally promised as the seed of the 
woman to bruise the Serpent's head. 

There remains, still, an important and co-ordi- 
nate feature of this legal aspect of the Atonement 
to be unfolded. 

In due time, he appeared as the incarnate Son 
of God, having taken to himself, "a true body and 
a reasonable soul." He laid hold, not upon the 
angelic nature but upon the seed of Abraham. 
Heb. 2:16. And inasmuch as the children were 

(53) 



04 l HE ATONEMENT. 

partakers of "flesh and blood," he himself likewise 
took part of the same. As Hebrews 2:14 informs 
as: "Since then the children are sharers in flesh 
and blood, he himself in like manner partook of 
the same; that through death he might bring to 
nought him that had the power of death, that is, 
the Devil/ 1 In V, 9, we learn that in some true 
sense, in his satisfaction of the law, completely cen- 
tralized in his crucifixion, he tasted death for every 
man or moral agent, now sinners, or who may be- 
come sinnei 

The Oriental notion that evil is an eternal rival 
of Jehovah, must be cast aside as a delusion. The 
idea that the Universe is ultimately to be cleansed 
of all impurity and sin is hospitable to the normal 
mind. Oh, Thou Eternal Holy One! 

Again (Hebrews 2:16-17): "For verily not 
to angels doth he give help, but he giveth help to 
the seed of Abraham. Wherefore it behooved him 
in all things to be made like unto his brethren, that 
he might become a merciful and faithful high priest 
in things pertaining to God, to make expiation and 
propitiation for the sins of the people."* 

Were there a parallel to be found in the uni- 
verse, like unto this helpful feature of the atone- 
ment here presented, we would naturally expect to 

♦The translation of V. 16 in the R. V. is more explicit and 
rlcted in the exclusion of angels then the A. V. The critical 
Greek word ( epilambanetai), does not mean to assume the na- 
ture of anything as in the A. V., but to extend or put forth a 
helping hand. Revisers have somewhat altered this literal mean- 
Ing by excluding this aid from Angels. But, as it is an open pre 
diction that word "man" has been added, yet might it not be pri- 
marily to man and possibly secondarily to all other sinful moral 
agent > tinder the one only moral Law of the Universe. 



THE ATONEMENT. 53 

find it in the case of the fallen angels; but this 
language is entirely exclusive of any such proceed- 
ing in their behalf of which we are not only ignorant, 
but incapable of even satisfactorily conjecturing. The 
reason seems to be plain enough. There was no 
marriage among the angels (Mark 12:25) and no 
racial communion among them as among men. Their 
whole community was distinguished by individual- 
ism; whereas, among men, the representative and 
covenant principles prevail. (1 Corinthians 15:22.) 
' 'For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ, shall all 
be made alive, but each in his own order. As all 
that died, died in Adam, so all that are made alive, 
are made alive in Christ, by the helping hand." (Ap- 
pendix ; G.) 

The Scriptures allow of no exception, in the 
human race, from death in Adam; as all died in 
some true sense through him according to saving 
Mercy in the Counsels of Eternity, G-en. 2 :17, but it 
does not appear that all without exception are to 
be made alive in Christ, because the contingency 
of saving human faith is reckoned with; the mean- 
ing being, that all who attain eternal life attain 
it through Christ alone, in the appointed and 
proper exercise of individual faith. (Romans 3:23.) 
' l For all have sinned and come short of the glory of 
God." Of course, this predication is made of the 
human race. 

The complex service of the Messiah has been 
aptly credited to him, in the diverse characters of 
prophet, priest and king. The subject of the 
Atonement that now concerns us, as is made per- 
fectly plain, legally and permanently pertains to 



56 THE ATONEMENT, 

him as priest, and not simply as natural ruler, so 
that in order to appreciate this work it is neces- 
sary to have a go< d understanding of the functions 
of a priest 

A priesl i> a religious character who, in mat- 
ters of worship, acts a- a middleman between the 
offended deity worshipped and the offending wor- 
ship I crs. The recognition and service of a priest 
implies alienation and enmity between the .God and 
His worshippers. The priest is supposed to be 
on friendly relations with both parties between 
whom he mediates. There are two things which 
constitute and distinguish the official service of a 
priest; first, the offering of sacrifice, propitiatory 
to the o (Tended God and expiatory of the offending 
people; and second, intercession with the deity 
in their behalf, by the mediating priest. Both 
these functions of a priesthood were observed by 
the Lord Jesus Christ. His sacrifice was himself 
on the cross, and as mediator he ever liveth to 
make intercession for his people. (Heb. 9:14.) As 
to the priestly sacrifice: "How much more (than 
that of animals) shall the blood of Christ, who 
through the eternal spirit offered himself without 
blemish unto God." (Tim. 2:5.) "For there is one 
God, one mediator also between God and men, him- 
if man, Christ Jesus." (Heb. 7:25.) "Where- 
fore also he is able to save to the uttermost them 
tliad draw near unto God through him, seeing he 
ever liveth to make intercession for them." 



THE LT0NEMB3 V. 57 



We have seen, in what precedes, evidence of 
the dual satisfaction that Christ rendered to the 
precept and the penalty of the broken law of (God 

2. It is now to be distinctly noted that this 
compliance of the Saviour with the dual claims of 
the broken law of God, constitutes that righteous- 
ness which delivered himself from under the broken 
law. Eighteousness, as thus used in the ScrijJtures 
and in the affairs of life, signifies that which satis- 
fies law, broken or unbroken, human or divine. This 
is a righteousness objective in its character, and 
entirely distinct and differing from his personal 
holiness or sinless excellence. It is something 
which he did not bring with him from heaven, but 
wrought out during his humiliation here on earth. 
It is as distinct from his moral character as the 
fortune of a millionaire from its owner. It effected 
his deliverance from the humiliating bondage of a 
putative sinner and it is the same infinite and ex- 
haustless righteousness imputed to others, whomso- 
ever, that also effects their salvation. It was by 
imputation, above, that our sins were set down to 
Christ's account and it is likewise by imputation 
that this righteousness of his is set down altruisti- 
cally to the account of individual sinners; and ac- 
ceptance procures their pardon and salvation, 
through the Holy Spirit. This imputation is in all 
cases an act of God to incompetents but which to 
competents accepted by faith is wrought by the Holy 
Spirit. 



58 THE ATONEMENT. 

It is this righteousness that delivered Christ 
himself from under the law, and that delivers every 
sinner to whose account it is credited or imputed if 
accepted. It is the precise object of saving faith, 
to gain pardon from the same broken law. This 
must be understood as definite and exclusive and 
all comprehensive. 

It is the distinctiveness of this righteousness 
that renders its imputation practicable. It is 
imputed to or set down to the account of Christ as 
his persona] possession of which he receives the 
benefit, as we have seen, and to all others it is im- 
puted as a gracious gift. Imputation is the hinge 
of salvation ; and its repudiation is a sin, perhaps 
the sin against the Holy Ghost. (Appendix G.) 

It is important to notice, as preliminary to 
Christ's altruistic redemption of others besides 
himself, that we notice distinctly that the primary 
effect and purpose of Christ's sacrifice were in his 
own behalf, and then as a consequence in behalf of 
others, but all as mediator. 

Now, as particularly emphasizing the fact that 
Christ's sacrifice was primarily in his own behalf, 
as a putative sinner, we wish to array briefly the 
explicit testimony of the Scriptures in support of 
this important view or doctrine, of the Bible. 

We would recall to mind the proceedings of 
the Bigh Priest on the day of Atonement in an- 
cient Israel, as a pronounced type or forecast of 
Christ's proceeding as High Priest. It was only 
in the character of High Priest that our Saviour 
a< ted and the proceedings of the High Priesl of 
Israel on the great day of Atonement, the tenth 



THE atox i:\ient. 59 

day of tlu k seventh month, about our September, were 
doubtless typical of the Saviour's priestly service, as 
he is distinctly characterized as our High Priest. 
(Hel). 6:20.) (Appendix H.) 

]t must be borne in mind in reading the ac- 
count of the solemn proceedings on the great day 
of Atonement, the most important day in the 
Jewish year, that its ceremonies were entirely con- 
ducted by the High Priest, and in Lev. 16:11 we 
read: "And Aaron the High Priest, shall present 
a bullock of the sin-offering w r hich is for himself, 
and shall make atonement for himself, and for his 
house, and shall kill the bullock of the sin-offering 
which is for himself." And as completing this 
service for himself he proceeded with the incense 
and the blood of this offering for himself into the 
Holy of Holies, and, with his finger, sprinkled the 
blood on the mercy seat whilst the burning incense 
filled the Holy of Holies with a cloud and the 
blood was sprinkled by the High Priest's finger 
seven times on the mercy seat. (Appendix I.) 
After all this has been done, verse 15 says: "Then 
shall he kill the goat of the sin-offering that is 
for the people and bring his blood within the veil. ' * 
The first goat symbolizes the bloody service of the 
Atonement of Christ; Azazel the second goat, the 
bloodless work of the Holy Spirit. The offering 
for the people, let us distinctly notice, is there- 
fore made after the offering for the High 
Priest himself, and, in their behalf, he enters a 
second time into the Holy of Holies with incense 
and atoning blood. The same is true also of Christ 
and is thus affirmed respecting him. This pro- 
ceeding of the Jewish High Priest w r as repeated 



( i' f THE ATONEMENT. 

front year to year, and the reason of his offering 
sacrifice for himself, before he offered it for the 
people, was the fact of his being personally a 
sinner and needed this preparation for their serv- 
\<>\v if we turn over to Hebrews 5:1-3 we 
read as follows, respecting Christ: "For every 
Sigh Priest, being taken from among men, is 

ointed for men, in things pertaining to God, 
that he may offer both gifts and sacrifices for sins; 
who can bear gently with the ignorant and erring, 
for that he himself also is compassed with infirm- 
ity, and by reason thereof is bound, as for the 

pie, so also for himself, to offer for sins." The 
only sin on his own part, by which it was possible 
for Christ to make an offering for himself was of 
course the imputed sin as mentioned by the prophet 
[saiah 53:6: " Jehovah hath laid on him the in- 
finity of us all." He was, therefore, as High 
Priest, pntatively a sinner, a sin bearer. 

It seems to be as plain as language can make 
it that we have in Lev. a type in the proceeding 
of the Sigh Priest of which we have the anti-type, 
or response, by Christ in Hebrews. In both eases 
the sacrifice for the High Priest is offered prior 
to the sacrifice for the people. The one sacrifice 
of Chrisl necessarily had this dual significance. 
Again (Hebrews 7:26-27), let us notice: "For 
such a Eigh Priest became us, holy, guileless, un- 
defiled and separated from sinners, and made high- 
er than the heavens ; who needeth not dailv, like 
those Bigh Priests, to offer up sacrifices, first for 

own sms, and then for the sins of the people; 

for THIS BE DID ONCE POB MJL, WHEN in: OFFERED VV 



THE ATONEMENT. 6] 

himself." The emphasis, here, lies on "once for 
all; 99 and his one sacrifice, therefore, had a dis- 
tinctly dual function pertaining* first to himseli and 
then to others — "the people." The point of 
variation is not as to the offering of the sacri- 
fice for himself, but the repetition of it. Christ's 
offering was "once for all," by him (Heb. 
5:2-8), "who can bear gently with the ignorant and 
erring, for a that he himself also is compassed with 
infirmity, and by reason thereof, is bound, as for 
the people, so also for himself to offer for sins." 
So, then, we see that Christ's offering was in some 
true sense primarily for himself as a sinner. It 
was egoistic. I see no escape from this startling 
and profound conclusion, but I do see plainly its 
vital importance to a complete and valid scriptural 
view of the Atonement. Plainly, therefore, there was 
a priority in Christ's sacrifice for putative sin in his 
own behalf, as distinguished from and preparatory 
for its service to the people, in its altruistic value 
and effect. The instant that the satisfaction of the 
law was completed, he being personally holy and 
without sin in his personal character, and needing 
no change thereof, and no occasion nor possibility of 
the imputation of another's righteousness to him, 
and no repetition of his sacrifice, having made it 
"once for all," he was therefore, ipso facto re- 
leased from his representative mediatorial bondage 
to the broken but now fully satisfied law. The conclu- 
sion that his justification was immediate is trans- 
parent. 



CHAPTER X. 

[S i 's .1 \->n t i« atiox — Adoption — Sanctification 
— Holy Spirit's Work— The Internal Ob- 
stacli:, [ts Importance — The At-onb-ment 
AVork of the Second and Third Persons — 
Equally Substantial and Important. 



In regard to Christ's immediate deliverance 
from the law or justification, it should be recalled 
that justification is an immediate judicial act, 
relative to one's legal status, and not a process, 
which is strictly true of Christ himself; whereas, 
in man's case it is not on personal grounds bat 
on imputed grounds. .Man's sanctification is ordi- 
narily a gradual and necessary transformation 
of personal and internal character into con- 
formity to the law, from whose spiritual claims 
he is not exempted by justification, but is thereunto 
fully committed and initiated by the first steps of 
faith as acting out the new and adopting birth by 
the Holy Spirit. There was no occasion for any 
adoption (Gal. 4:5) or sanctification in the case 
of Christ, who was already a perfect Son. Hence, 
his immediate deliverance on completing the work 
of satisfaction; whereas, the altruistic imputation 
to the personal sinner, having respect to his in- 
ternal faith, conditions his justification; but the 

(62) 



THE ATONT.MEXT. 63 

transformation of character, or sanctification, is a 

process initiated by the New Birth, in the case of 
all sane and competent adults, ordinarily requiring 
time and the efficient co-operation with them of 
the Paraclete for the removal of personal sins, 
and sinfulness; during which process man is in the 
attitude of adopted sonship, the act of justification 
being his initiation into this state as a divinely 
adopted child of God, a Saint. This process con- 
sists in transforming the personal character of the 
adopted into conformity with the imputed righteous- 
ness. (Appendix J.) 2 Cor. 5:20. "It is not God 
who now needs to be reconciled to man, but man 
alone who needs to be reconciled to God." Dunl- 
in el ow. 

(2) Having now concluded our discussion of 
the legal phase of the Atonement as made by 
Christ, it remains for us to consider more distinct- 
ly the co-operate work of the Holy Spirit, or Para- 
clete, in transforming man's internal or subjective 
character into righteous harmony with his justified 
status. (Appendix K.) 

In what precedes, our attention has been chiefly 
though not exclusively, occupied with the steps 
taken by God for the removal of the legal obstacle 
to man's gaining heaven; but this is distinctively 
the external obstacle which was efficiently removed 
by Jesus Christ, as preparatory for the removal of 
the internal obstacle by the third person of the Trin- 
ity. This internal subjective obstacle consists of the 
alienation of the human mind from (God, and its 
aversion to God. This internal obstacle is just as 
serious and insuperable by man as the legal obstacle, 



64 THE ATONEMENT. 

and is here entitled to additional and explicit con- 
sideration. Indeed, to a consideration quite equal 
to that of the legal obstacle chiefly and distinctively 
removed by the second person, and equally essential 
as a constituent part of the At-one-ment or Atone- 
ment. This it must 'be emphatically understood, is 
the distinctive work of the Holy Spirit in covenant 
co-operation with the second person in the substan- 
tial work of the Atonement. The work of the third 
) erson is not a mere corollary of the work of the 
second person; as though the work of the second 
person substantially or mainly completed the work 
of the Atonement and this official work of the Spirit 
were merely incidental, secondary and consequen- 
tial, instead of being! a substantial part of the origi- 
nal proposition of salvation. The work of the Son, 
second person, takes account of the Godward recon- 
ciliation, or legal condemnation; and the work of 
the Spirit, the third person, takes an equally nec- 
essary and substantia] account of the manward rec- 
onciliation, or sinful state. 

The reconciliation of God the Father, as else- 
where noted, was completed when the incarnated 
and resurrected Son ascended to the throne on the 
right hand of the Father; but the reconciliation of 
man has moved down through the ages and still 
awaits its appointed consummation, which shall be 
marked by the glorious return to earth of our as- 
cended Lord Jehovah. Isaiah 9:6-7. 

And hence, we recall that the Atonement— at- 
one-ment— of our Holy Scripture, allots the divine 
work of removing this internal obstacle to the offi- 
cial service of the Holy Spirit* — the third persou 
of the Trinity, the Paraclete. John 3:5-7. 



THE ATONEMENT. 65 

His work in removing this internal obstacle is 
as strictly and necessarily a part of the atoning re- 
demption and reconciliation of man with God, as 
the removal of the legal obstacle. I venture to ex- 
press the opinion, however imperfect it may be, 
that the Christian Church has never fully and with 
sufficient particularity honored the Holy Spirit in 
this matter. An almost excessive and superfluous 
credit has been given to the second person and a 
surprisingly scant recognition to the third person, 
in the discussion of Atonement. In some treatises 
on the subject of the Atonement, as though it- 
were incidental, the Holy Spirit is almost ignored, 
and seldom, if ever, duly recognized. This is a 
human and not a scriptural lack of recognition. I 
shall omit names, but positively affirm that this 
chorus of distinguished delinquents grates on my 
ears, as attuned to the harmonious voices of Script- 
ure, as harsh and grating discord. Christ is not 
honored by giving him credit, even by implication, 
beyond his due, and the Holy Spirit cannot be 
otherwise than offended 'by withholding from Him 
His rightful credit due, in the salvation of the human 
soul by His divine and covenanted cooperation 
with the second person of the Trinity, our 
incarnated Jehovah. In either case, it is a failure to 
do equal justice to divine truth. Let it be re- 
peated once for all, that legal rectification is not 
to be separated from the spiritual rectifications. 
The foundation of a house is a part of the house 
itself, but the house cannot exist without the 
super-structure. In this case, the Holy Spirit, the 
Paraclete, is pre-eminently the builder, the Father 



66 THE ATONEMENT. 

being the Architect, of the super-structure of char- 
acter, "the building of God, the house not made 
with hands." The function of the Holy Spirit is 
the key-note to the practical perfecting of the 
spiritual government of God, this marvelous sit- 
uation forcing on our attention the reflection 
that it is because human government has not and 
cannot have such an active agent as the Holy Spirit, 
that it is so imperfect in its administration. Its 
wisest legislative or judicial proceedings are faulty. 
This suggests why Imputation is such a ruling 
feature of the Gospel, and so impracticable in human 
government. 



CHAPTER XI 

Original. Announcement — Method Inductive — 
Two Obstacles — The Scripturally Substan- 
tive Doctrine — Edenic State and Historic 
Sketch of our Fallen Race — Jonathan Ed- 
wards — Dr. Stalker. 



We thus have before us the primary import 
and importance of the experiential, spiritual and 
personal function of the Atonement. 

At the very outset it was announced that the 

*/ 

guiding thought and purpose of this discourse 
contemplated a faithful and as complete a state- 
ment as possible of the teaching of our sacred Scrip- 
ture on this subject. Whilst its various discussions 
by different writers take account, in varied degree, 
of the Christian Scriptures, in general they seem to 
fall far short of a full and faithful recognition and 
use of scriptural instructions, as is illustrated by 
the notable "Cur Deus Homo," Why God Became 
Man, 1.098 A. D., which did not claim to strictly fol- 
low the Scripture, but was an independent and pious 
speculation. However, it rendered a good service, 
unexpectedly, by discrediting the claim of Satan to 
Man's bond-service as rightful. 

It may be confidently affirmed that in all 
history there is no equally absurd episode as the 
belief of the leading fathers of the Church, for 800 

(67) 



68 THE ATONEMENT. 

years from Origen to Anselm that Satan had in Eden 
acquired a just claim or right to the bondage of 
man as a captive which even God could not disre- 
gard. Hence the redemption of Christ was the par- 
chase of a bondman's service from Satan in consid- 
eration for his services to Satan, who had the right- 
ful power of life and death, (Heb. 2:14,) strangely 
overlooking the fundamental principle that deception 
and fraud can not establish nor maintain any right. 

This perverse and false concession to Satan, by 
leading authorities of the church prevailed and had a 
career from Origen, 254 A. D., to Anselm, arch- 
bishop of Canterbury, 1109 A. D., extending over 
800 years. The "Cur Deus Homo" was originally 
issued 1098 and it assumed that no right had 
been acquired By Satan, in the fall but that a great 
wrong had been committed against God by robbing 
Him of man's services, and insisting that the first 
step toward adjustment was the satisfaction of 
God for this wrong. The word " satisfaction'' 
was the magic word and the wrong or sin he chose 
to deal with as a "debt." 

The most elaborate notice and criticism of 
this work is entitled " Anselm 's Theory of the 
Atonement, by George Cadwallader Foley, D. D., 
Professor of Homiletics and Pastoral Care in the 
Divinity School of the Protestant Episcopal Church 
in Philadelphia." Published 1908, Longmans, 
Green & Co. Dr. Foley, p. 119, remarks of Anselm 
in this work: "He, Anselm, never proves his 
positions from the scriptures, which explains his 
omission of so many elements of the doctrine 
which find place in the New Testament." 



THE ATOXEMKNT. 69 

We have learned that there are only two 
obstacles which interpose between man, in his 

fallen state, and heaven; to-wit, the broken law of 
God, which we have hitherto considered, and the 
internal alienation from God, and aversion to God, 
in the natural state of the human mind. The 
remedy for this condition must manifestly provide 
for the complete removal of both these obstacles. 
To remove only the external obstacle would leave 
man still in bondage to the internal corruption 
and power of sin. The human mind itself must be 
purified, as well as pardoned, as is so aptly 
symbolized in baptism. To anyone whose mind is 
occupied w T ith this comprehensive scriptural view 
of the essentially dual function of the Atonement, 
it cannot be otherwise than surprising, that to 
such a considerable extent, it has been limited to 
pardon. True, pardon is essential, but it is only 
a part and not the whole of the theoretical nor 
practical doctrine of the Atonement. It is not 
sufficient to represent the Atonement as distinctly 
providing for the efficient and entire removal of 
the legal obstacle but as providing for the removal 
of the internal obstacle only incidentally, or conse- 
quentially, for it is an essential constituent of the 
Atonement, or At-one-ment, without the realization 
of which, there is no reconciliation whatever possible 
to human experience. 

This adverse dual state of condemnation and 
aversion being assumed to be the agreed-on concep- 
tion of fallen man, it would seem obviously nec- 
essary that the doctrine of complete reconciliation 
must include the complete removal of both these ob- 



70 THE ATONEMENT. 

stacles; that is, the external legal obstacle and the 
internal spiritual obstacle, and the awakening of the 
love of God, The pro) itiation of God cannot stand 
apart from the expiation and sanctiiication of man. 
We learned from our study of the Edenic 
state of man, that by disobedience of God's law he 
fell into a state of condemnation and depravity. 
This was the hopeless condition of man, as man- 
ifested and made evident by various striking 
circumstances in the early record; as, for example, 
his hiding from the presence of Jehovah ; his being 
excluded from the Garden of Eden, under the dis- 
pleasure of Jehovah; his being clothed by Jehovah 
with the skins of sacrificed animals ^Gen. 3:21), 
evidently appointed of Jehovah, as prophetic of the 
bloody sacrifice of Calvary, in deliverance from 
this otherwise hopeless fallen state; the fratricidal 
murder of Abel by Cain, whose mother by mistake 
supposed Cain to be Jehovah, "the promised seed," 
— (Gen. 4:1), "I have gotten a man — Jehovah." 
Seth was the third recorded son of Adam, born in 
the image of his father, in that he enjoyed with 
him the prophetic hope of redemption from this 
sinful state, through the symbol of the bloody cross 
of the promised seed: and as the race continued to 
develop, we have from Jehovah's lips this telling 
record in Genesis forecasting within a few centuries, 
the terrible catastrophe of the flood, on account of 
man's mora] depravity. Gen. (>:3, 5. "And Jehovah 
said, My Spirit shall not strive with man forever, 
for that he also is flesh; yet shall his days be a hun- 
dred and twenty years. And Jehovah saw that the 
wickedness oY man was great in the earth, and that 



THE ATONEMENT, 71 

every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was 

only evil continually. " 

And then, as summarizing the course of Godless 
events from and before the time of the flood to the 
time of the introduction of Christianity in Xew 
Testament days we have Romans 1:21-32 and 2:1. 

The kindred utterances of the New Testament 
are confirmatory of these terrible delineations of 
man's state by the Apostle Paul, as one of legal 
condemnation and moral depravity. This terrible 
arraignment of Paul has been verified in every par- 
ticular; and in Herbert Spencer's criticism of 
Frederick Harrison's "Humanitarianism," taking 
into account the general moral condition of human- 
ity, down to the present time, he ridicules the 
humanitarian doctrine of worshipping the ideal of 
humanity, by arraignment of our race therein, quite 
as degenerate as that of Paul. And Prof. Huxley 
confirms Spencer's gloomy delineation of man's de- 
moralization by remarking, that he would as soon 
think of worshipping the ideal of a wilderness of 
apes as the ideal of humanity. Such is the unlovely 
picture that historic truthfulness, and not pre- 
judiced pessimism, gives us of fallen humanity, 
from the expulsion from Eden down to the present 
day. One of these distinguished dreamers and 
humanitarians, Frederick Harrison, still lives, and 
Spencer and Huxley are leading authorities as 
Ethnologists within whose purview lies this ethnic 
race question. 

Now, in view of this demoralized, depraved 
and helpless situation, is it not unreasonable and 
unbelievable that God would ever have provided a 



72 THE ATONEMENT. 

scheme of at-one-ment — or reconciliation, or Atone- 
ment and communion, — between God and fallen man 
thai did not completely provide for the complete re- 
moval of both these obtrusive obstacles, and the 
positive establishment of pure and sanctified com- 
munion between himself and redeemed humanity, as 
a single and substantially unified redemption proc- 
ess I 

In this harmonizing enterprise Christ's work is 
Godward and the equally necessary and divine 
work of the Holy Spirit is manward. Both these 
removals necessarily go together and in the con- 
templation of the Atonement by God, they are 
constitutive of the removal of the double barrier 
to man's gaining heaven and attaining a glorious 
salvation. This duality is constitutive of the 
oneness of the Atonement in the procedure of God. 
It should not seem strange, therefore, that anyone 
who takes this radically comprehensive view of the 
difficulty between God and man to be rectified, should 
emphatically dissent from the limitation of the 
Atonement to a limited and restricted view of it, in 
the work of Christ alone, leaving out of view the co- 
operative and equal work of the Holy Spirit, except 
by implication or inference. Oh, no! It is the 
joint work of the Logos and the Paraclete. 

The interesting little book of Dr. Stalker on 
the Atonement, does not even name the Holy Spirit; 
but in this the author does not in principle stand 
alone; even a host limits the Atonement to the pre- 
cise or distorted nature of Christ's work of self- 
sacrifice on the cross. (Appendix L.) I sympathize 
with Dr. Stalker's criticism of Campbell and Ritschl, 



Tin: vmxKMKXT. 73 

in practically abandoning the Bible doctrine of the 

Atonement and indulging the unwarranted liberty 
of applying the term to their fabricated view and 
criticism; and "using terms as equivalent which, 
in exact theology, have been always treated as dis- 
tinct." But certainly exact theology has never 
had Biblical authority for virtually and articulately 
ignoring the Holy Spirit in technically discoursing 
on the doctrine of the Atonement. Dr. Stalker 
himself states, on page 116, that "one of the prin- 
cipal indications of the existence of separate per- 
sons in the Trinity is the habit in Scripture of 
assigning separate functions to these in the work 
of salvation," yet, it is a surprise that Dr. Stalker 
in the matter of Atonement, articulately and ex- 
plicitly assigns no part to the Holy Spirit, and the 
Spirit is not named in the book. Indeed, one feels 
constrained to locate without apology, all who en- 
tertain any view that fails properly to recognize 
the scriptural atoning function of the work of the 
Holy Spirit, as a constituent of the Atonement, in 
a common group of delinquents. In our work, we 
have seen that redemption must embrace, equally, 
deliverance from the broken law of God and also 
deliverance from the alienation and moral degener- 
acy of the human soul. 

The doctrine of the Atonement is the doctrine 
of redemption and salvation, and it places under 
requisition the co-operative service of the three per- 
sons of the Trinity more efficiently and completely, 
perhaps, than any other doctrine of the gospel. 
Christianity, as expressed in the Atonement, is 
really and conspicuously the supreme legal, moral 



74- THE ATONEMENT. 

and spiritual work of the triune God, so far as 
the fallen race of man is concerned. 

It leaves out of view, save by implication and 
obscure hints, the exceedingly interesting problem 
touching i he rescue of other sinful moral agents 
than man. The B. V. has startled us by its touch 
of this issue, in Ileb. 2:16. Our view of the one 
mora] law of the Universe is definite, and our view 
of the constitution of moral agency and the possi- 
bility of obeying or of sinful disobedience of this law, 
is also definite. But there may be, as yet, unre- 
vealed resources of the Divine Nature, and Purpose, 
to be disclosed in the Eternal Future, now beyond 
even rational conjecture, but when made, shall be 
intelligible to apprehension and faith. Is God's uni- 
verse ever to be cleansed of sin? Certainly, we can 
not accept the a priori Eternity of Evil, and shall 
we supinely acquiesce in its a postori Eternality? 
The sending of the Son of God in the interest of 
man was a novelty. There may be others. 

It is desirable at this point to emphasize the 
spiritual element or the work of the Holy Spirit,* 

*Zechariah 4: G: . "Then he answered and spake unto me, 
Baying, This is the word of Jehovah unto Zerubbabel, saying, 
Not by might nor by power, but by my spirit, saith Jehovah of 
hosts." 

Vinet speaks of the personal agent, expressed by "ruah" in 
the O. T\, and "pneuma" in the New. as the executor of the 
Trinity, so that all the active manifestations of the divine 
presence in nature as well as in the lives of individuals, saints 
and sinners, are due to his active presence. The supreme em- 
phasis to all this is given by the conspicuous fact that the re- 
demptive work of the Son of God was successfully accomplished 
only through and by virtue of his co-operative efficiency. Our 
Jehovah "through the Eternal Spirit offered himself without 
blemish unto God." Heb. 9:14. This central truth being es- 
tablished, all others fall into easy harmonious subordination, 
and this range of adjustment certainly includes the Atonement, 
and no theory qualiflcatlve of this can be allowed. 



THE ATONEMENT, i 5 

embraced in the doctrine of the Atonemenl as dis- 
tinguishing Christianity pre-eminently above all 
other religions, and placing it in bold contrast with 
them, including Natural Religion, as powerless 

because of man's alienated state, to improve perma- 
nently the well being and happiness of man. As 

contributing to this end it is now proposed to in- 
troduce a salient and pertinent quotation from 
Prof. Fowler's great work of more than five hun- 
dred pages, on "The Religious Experience of the 
Roman People." 

The Roman Empire, when distinctive Christian- 
ity took its start, was co-extensive with the civilized 
world. It was the Augustinian age, and the primary 
proclamation of the gospel was made in Palestine, 
one of its small and obscure provinces lying along 
the eastern shore of the Mediterranean or Mid-Earth 
Sea; and it was through the Roman officials of 
this Province that it first arrested the attention of 
the Imperial rulers at Rome, who had only sin- 
darkened natural religion in the light of creation 
and providence. 

The condition of religion, therefore, in this 
empire is a matter of supreme interest to the stu- 
dent of the Christian religion. The following 
expression of Prof. Fowler sheds a flood of light 
on this problem. He uses the following language 
on pages 466 and 467. His words are : 

"I say this deliberately, after spending so 
many years on the study of the religion of the 
Romans, and making myself acquainted, in some 
measure, with the religions of other peoples. The 
essential difference, as it appears to me, as a stu- 
dent of the history of religion, is this: That 



76 THE ATONEMENT. 

whereas the connection between religion and moral- 
it}' has so far been a loose one, — at Rome, indeed, 
so loose, that many have refused to believe in its 
existence,— the new religion was itself morality, but 
morality consecrated and raised to a higher power 
than it had ever ye1 reached. It becomes active 
instead of passive; mere good nature is replaced 
by a doctrine of universal love; pietas, the sense 
of duty in outward things, becomes an enthusiasm 
embracing all humanity, consecrated by such an 
appeal to the conscience as there never had been in 
the world before — the appeal to the life and death 
of tlie divine Master. 

' 'This is what is meant, if I am not mistaken, 
by the great contrast so often and so vividly 
drawn by St. Paul between the spirit and the flesh, 
between the children of light and the children of 
darkness, between the sleep or the death of the 
world and the waking to life of Christ, between the 
blameless and the harmless sons of God and the 
crooked and perverse generation among whom they 
shine as lights in the world." Prof. Fowler con- 
tinues: "I confess that I never realized this con- 
trast fully or intelligently until I read through the 
Pauline Epistles from beginning to end with a 
special historical object in view. It is useful to be 
familiar with the life and literature of the two 
preceding centuries, if only to be able the better to 
realize, in passing to St. Paul, a Roman citizen, 
a man of education and experience, the great gulf 
fixed between the old and the new as he himself 
saw it. 



THE ATONEMENT. 77 

"But historical knowledge, knowledge of the 
Roman society of the day, study of the Roman 
religious experience, cannot do more than give us 
a little help; they cannot reveal the secret. His- 
tory can explain the progress of morality, but it 
cannot explain its consecration. "With St, Paul 
the contrast is not merely one of good and bad, but 
of the spirit and the flesh, of life and death. No 
mere contemplation of the world around him 
could have kindled the fervency of spirit with which 
this contrast is by him conceived and expressed. 
Absolute devotion to the life and death of the 
Master, apart even from this work and teaching 
(of which, indeed, St. Paul says little), this alone 
can explain it. The love of Christ is the entirely 
new power that has come into the world." (Ap- 
pendix M2.) 

In regard to this quotation from a work to 
which my attention was particularly attracted by 
the volume of Dr. Harris E. Kirk, of Baltimore, 
Maryland, containing a course of lectures delivered 
by him to the students of Union Theological Semi- 
narv of Richmond, Va., with the title: "The Re- 
ligion of Power," and of which he made legiti- 
mate and valuable use in setting forth the classic Ro- 
man religious back ground of Christianity in its 
original publication, we wish to make the following 
remarks : 

Strong as the presentation of Prof. Fowler is 
in this quotation in support of Christianity as sur- 
passing all other religions, and small as he con- 
siders Rome's contribution to the publication of 
Christianity, I wish to add a few statements which 



78 the atom: ME NT. 

serve to show and emphasize unequivocally the 
positive antagonism of the Roman state religion to 
Christianity in its original publication. Prof- 
Fowler gives as valuable aid in realizing the empha- 
sis the Empire of Home has given to the stupen- 
dous obstacles which Christianity courageously un- 
dertook to overcome, "I can do all things in Christ 
who strengthened me." Phil. 4:13, Having spent 
more than twenty years of my life in the classic 
shades of college and university life and work, [ 
make no apology for the liberty thus taken. 

Remark (1) I remark that Polytheism and idol- 
atry were pervasive of the entire Roman empire. Of 
all man's offenses to God, no one is more intense 
than that of idolatry. To this sin of idolatry the 
fiercest denunciations are allotted throughout the 
Christian Scriptures. Yet it may be confidently af- 
firmed that no intelligent man can read the tenth 
book of Plato's Laws, written in his old age, without 
finding and recognizing unanswerable proof that both 
Socrates and Plato were actual idolaters. They 
knew not the true God. 

These two greatest philosophers of the an- 
cient Gentile world were undoubtedly, as judged by 
any fair criterion of the definition of the true God, 
actual atheists. They neither knew nor worshipped 
the true God, Greek society was as completely 
steeped as the Roman in Godless Atheism. The ex- 
planation in Book X of Plato's Laws, of the lamenta- 
bly depraved condition of the youth of that age was 
their departure from the religion of the state, and 
the proposed remedy for this apostacy was a re- 
covery of these youth to this idolatrous worship of 



TI1K ATONEMENT. 7 ( ) 

the gods of the state. This was the avowed pur- 
pose of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus (1(50-180, A. D.) 
in his bitter persecution to suppress Christianity and 
to restore the people to the worship of the Roman 
gods and Emperors. 

Remark (2) : The doctrine of one God, the Cre- 
ator and Ruler of the Universe, was wholly unknown 
and unrecognized. Not a man can be adduced out of 
the circles of Roman or Greek society and literature 
of any grade whatever, who held the doctrine of 
one living and true God, taught and kept alive by 
the Hebrew Scriptures ; not one who knew or wor- 
shipped the true God. This statement is deliberate- 
ly based on inquisitive college and university 
classical service and association of more than twenty 
years. 

Remark (3) : Positively, the religious doctrine of 
the Romans was polytheistic Pantheism. It was not 
from Platonism, but from Stoicism that Paul quoted 
at Athens; there was a noted Stoic university in 
Tarsus where Paul was raised, and whose influence 
he must have felt as a boy. Its chief philosophic 
influence, properly presented by the author as com- 
ing from Greece, was from Stoicism, and not from 
Platonism, nor Peripateticism, nor Epicureanism; 
and this Stoicism, which the author properly recog- 
nizes as the chief philosophic influence on the Ro- 
man people, was atheistic. The soul individually 
perishes at death. The hope of individual or per- 
sonal immortality certainly did not animate the 
religious experiences of the Roman people; where- 
as, the future life and immortality were brought 
to light by the gospel. I now affirm with emphasis 



80 THE ATONEMENT. 

sustained by abounding and irrefutable authority, 
that Cleanthes, represented as quoted by Paul at 
Athens, and praised even by some Christians as a 
luminous example of faith in one God, was a ruling 
spirit of Stoicism, and was in reality not only a ma- 
terialist hut a materialistic Pantheist. Did my space 
allow I would here quote entire, a literal transla- 
tion of his noted hymn to Zeus, which is idealized 
briefly by some in such a way as perversely to trans- 
form it into a beautiful spiritual recognition of the 
true God. 

"0 king of kings 

Through ceaseless ages, God, whose pur- 
pose brings 
To birth, whatever on land or in the seas 
Is wrought, or in high heaven's immensity; 
Save what the sinner works infatuate.' ' 

Cleanthes. 

Let it be understood that the god here recog- 
nized is Zeus, the Greek supreme god of the hea- 
then. The allusion of Paul is quite informal and 
it mighl be almost said to be a catch word reminis- 
cence. This poem of Cleanthes is said to be the 
only survival of the poetry of the Stoic philosophy 
of that day. 

Neither Lucretius, Seneca, Epictetus, nor the 
Emperor Marcus Aurelius Antoninus furnishes any 
evidence that particularly qualifies this statement; 
and as prompted by this Pantheistic faith of the 
Stoic, Marcus Aurelius, past the middle of the 
second century, was a bitter persecutor of Chris- 
tians and allowed himself to stand before the Ro- 



THE ATONEMENT. SI 

man people like preceding Emperors, as the su- 
preme object of idolatrous worship, in the place 
of the true God, of whom he could not have been 
ignorant, but whose legitimate claims he repudiated 
and scorned — a worse atheist than his ignorant 
predecessors. 

This allusion of Paul to Stoic Philosophy sug- 
gests the propriety and utility of quoting with ap- 
proval a concise epitome of philosophy in its re- 
lation to the New Testament from the one volume 
Commentary on the Bible edited by J. R. Dum- 
melow, of Cambridge, England. 

"Athens, though fallen from its former glory 
at the time of Paul's visit there, was still the ar- 
tistic and philosophic, and, in many ways, the re- 
ligious capital of the world. The city was full of 
temples and altars and the people so devoted to 
religious ceremonies and mysteries that they merit- 
ed the title (whether in a good or bad sense) of 
superstitious. Athens, on account of its illustri- 
ous history, was held in honor by the Romans. It 
was allowed to retain its ancient institutions, but 
the democracy had long lost all real power, and 
the affairs of the city were administered by the 
aristocratic court of the Areopagus. The city was 
famed for its University, the most renowned in 
the world, at which a large number of students 
from all parts of the Empire were always in 
residence. As the original home of philosophy, 
Athens was the headquarters of all the chief philo- 
sophic schools. The only two philosophies, however, 
which at this time exercised an important influence 
upon politics and social life, were Stoicism and 



82 THE ATONEMENT, 

Epicureanism, which, for this reason are singled out 
by St. Luke for especial mention. So it was 
Socrates used to sit every day and all day in the 
market place of Athens, discussing philosophy with 
all comers." 

"At this time Stoicism was the philosophy 
of the majority of serious-minded people; Epicur- 
eanism that of the frivolous and irreligious. 

"The Stoics, so called from the Porch at 
Athens, in which their founder, Zeno, of Citium, 
lectured about L } 78 B. C, had many points of con- 
tact with Judaism. Josephus speaks of the tenets 
of the Stoics and of the Pharisees as being very 
similar. The spirit of both was somewhat narrow 
and austere. Both rejected compromise, believing 
that a man should suffer persecution and even death 
rather than depart in the least degree from the 
path of piety and virtue. Both were devoted to 
Law, the Pharisees to the Law of Moses, the Stoics 
to the Law of Nature, which they regarded as an 
actual code imposed upon man-kind by the Creator. 
The Stoics were strong fatalists, denying the free- 
dom of the will; the Pharisees were strong predes- 
tinarians. The Pharisees were Monotheists; the 
Stoics approximated to Monotheism. They be- 
lieved in a Divine Reason, or Logos, pervading and 
ordering all things, though, being Pantheists, they 
regarded it as the soul of the world, rather than as 
a distinct and transcendent personal Being. They 
also believed in a future life for a man, though not 
in actual immortality. St. Paul, therefore, decided- 
ly sympathized with the Stoics as against the Epi- 
cureans, whose doctrine that the end of life is 



THE ATONEMENT. 83 

pleasure, was of course, highly distasteful to him. 
Josephus says; 'The Epicureans cast Providence 
out of life, and deny that God takes cave of human 
affairs, and hold that the Universe is not directed 
with a view to a continuance of the whole by the 
blessed and incorruptible Being, but that it is 
carried along automatically and heedlessly/ 

"Creation was altogether denied by the Epi- 
cureans, who regarded atoms of matter as eternal; 
and only imperfectly recognized by the Stoics, 
who were Pantheists, and did not regard the Divine 
Person which shaped the world as distinct from it. 
The doctrine of Creation, as preached by St. Paul, 
was consequently a strange one at Athens. Of the 
Resurrection, the Athenians, either in jest or in 
earnest, seem to have understood Anastasis (the 
Resurrection ) to be a female deity, the wife of 
Jesus."* 

I venture to add that students of idolatry 
would do well to take account of a suggestion of 
Max Mueller, as a student of the Sanscrit Vedas of 
India, that contributes to provide our religious vo- 
cabulary with a new and convenient word, viz, 
"Henotheism;" the literal import of which is, "One 

*It is a mistake to suppose that the dominant philosophic in- 
fluence over Christian missionaries and writers of that day was 
Platonic, for it was as indicated in this citation, the Stoic. 

It is worthy of distinct notation that there was located at 
Tarsus, Paul's boy-hood home, a Stoic University, so distinguished 
in its influence that prominent citizens of the city sent 
their sons by Athens to Tarsus to enjoy its advantages. Paul, 
as a gifted youth, growing up under its very shadow must have 
inhaled its Stoic atmosphere, and to a certain extent become 
distinctively acquainted with its philosophy. Paul's allusions 
to philosophy, therefore, considering the great gifts of the man, 
were net random remarks, but seriously digested reflections. 



84 3 HE ATONEMENT. 

God," as designating idolaters who single out a fa- 
vorite individual divinity from the Polytheistic 
group and attribute to it all imaginable perfections. 
This literary trick, thus happily designated, has 

misled not a few, to accept (his pseudo-monotheism 
for the true monotheism. 

Such is the influence of Pantheism on the hu- 
man mind and moral character, that even a coolie 
in India saturated with this view, if you undertake 
to reprove him for the basest conduct, will smile 
in your face complacently and assure you that you 
are mistaken; for his actions are the actions of 
Brahma and cannot he wrong. The lamented Dr. 
S. II. Kellogg of India gives us this illustration in 
his work on Comparative Religions. 

Remark (4) : Expiation. The language of the 
great Latin Historian, Tacitus, is that "The gods in- 
terfere in human affairs but to punish." The com- 
mon yet surprising testimony of our missionaries 
the world over is confirmatory of this very distin- 
guished Latin historian, whose name and writings 
are so familiarly known by all classic students of 
former days. Indeed, the classic historians and 
poets familiarly instance expiatory sacrifices as pro- 
pitiating tic angry gods in human favor. But the as- 
tonishing thing is that there is not in the multitudi- 
nous lists of thousands of polytheistic divinities, a 
sin-lr instance of a pure and virtuous male or fe- 
male, not one. Even among the classic nations, 
Greece and Rome, not a single name can be found in 
their volumes of mythology oi l a virtuous character. 

And, still further, it is simply a matter of uni- 
versal public notoriety, that there was no vice or 



Till. ATONEMENT, 85 

crime, private or public, whose indulgence and per- 
petration and whose sanction would not be 
religiously approved and facilitated, by the bribery 

of some god or goddess. And those the most highly 
favored and patronized, such as Venus, were notor- 

iouslv vile. 

* 

This is a deliberately wholesale arraignment 
and every classical scholar sadly knows it to be true. 
An unlimited reward might safely be offered as a 
challenge to adduce a single exception. No wonder 
that classic students were heathenized. 

Now this vileness was a characteristic of all the 
religions of the Roman Empire, so that it was a 
serious topic whether morality was an element of 
religion as just quoted from Fowler. If possible, 
the gods were more depraved than their wor- 
shippers. This foul degradation of persons and 
moral agents, real and imaginary, in all the 
ages, has been the supreme practical obstacle 
to the universal spread of the Holy Gospel. It is 
a supremely humiliating arraingment of the race 
of man. We are by nature the children of wrath, the 
objects of the Divine displeasure, for w r hich the 
Atonement provided by the Father, executed by the 
Logos and the Paraclete, (Eph. 11:12) is the per- 
fectly adequate remedy, offered to and urged upon 
the acceptance of every son and daughter of Adam 
and Eve. " Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and 
thou shalt be saved." 

It is sufficiently obvious that the universal pre- 
occupation of the minds of the Eoman and other 
peoples for centuries by such views as indicated, 
must have presented such obstacles to the accept- 



S6 Tin: ATONEMENT. 

ance of Christianity as only omnipotence could 
wrestle with. Its diffusion and final triumph are 
amazing proofs of its superhuman origin and 
powers. 



CHAPTER XII. 

The Triune Service in the Atonement — The 
Great Commission — The Paraclete — Filioque 
— Pentecost — Christ's Return. 



We have seen at the outset of our discourse, how 
the love of the Father provided for maintaining the 
honor and dignity of the broken law of God, by the 
mission to earth of the only begotten Son of God, in 
his incarnation in human nature ; and we have seen 
the actual incarnation and service of the Son, in 
completely satisfying the broken law of /God's moral 
Government, and thus removing the penal or the 
external legal obstacle and opening the way for 
the essentially creative work of the Holy Spirit, 
an equally indispensable requirement, in the re- 
moval of the internal obstacle by the transformation 
of man's moral character (sanctification) from 
alienation and aversion to a loving sympathy and 
communion with the triune God, by purification as 
well as pardon. 

This creative spiritual service was in the plans 
of the Deity as we explicitly learn from Scripture, 
distinctly allotted to the Holy Spirit, the third 
person of the Trinity. "Except one be born anew of 
the Spirit, he cannot see the kingdom of God," 
(John 3:3.) And thus we have brought into requi- 

(87) 



88 THE ATONEMENT. 

sition and cooperation the active agency in 
man's salvation of the personal services of the 
Father, of His only begotten Son, and of the Holy 
Spirit This three-fold requisition in attaining the 
at -one-men t between fallen man and his offended 
God, corresponds to the contemplated triple func- 
tions of the Great Commission. It must be neither 
forgotten, nor neglected that the atoning work of 
the Saviour, however wonderful, in its glorious 
manifestations of the justice and the love of the 
Father, would be utterly ineffectual without the 
cooperative service of the Spirit in enabling the 
Son to effect it and man to accept it. However richly 
the table of the redemption banquet may have been 
spread by the Logos with viands, not a guest would 
have entered the banqueting chamber, without the 
converting and constraining influence of the Holy 
Spirit — the Paraclete — so intimate and interdepend- 
ent are these provisions of grace. Hence, the perti- 
nence of the Great Commission. (Matthew 28:18- 
20.) In talcing final leave of his disciples after his 
resurrection and 40 days of social intercourse with 
them (Acts 10:40-41 and when "above five hun- 
dred " were present, the Saviour gave his followers 
the following Great Commission : "And Jesus came 
to them and spake unto them, saying, All authority 
hath been given unto me in Heaven and on Earth. 
Go ye therefore and make disciples of all the na- 
tions, baptizing them into the name of the Father 
and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit: teaching 
them to observe all things whatsoever I command- 
ed you: and lo, I am with you alway, even unto 
the end of the world." This commission became the 



THE ATONEMENT. 89 

nucleus of the so-called Apostles' Creed, which, by 

or before the sixth century of the Christian era was 
formulated and has come down to us, in these ends 
of the earth, as the avowed Trinitarian Creed of all 
the churches of the Christian world. (Appendix MI, 
M2.) We have previously noticed the six redemp- 
tive acts of the Saviour which it enumerates. In- 
carnation, passion, resurrection, ascension, session, 
return or second coming; and of course, to this 
list should be added and never forgotten: "I 
believe in the Holy Ghost ; the Holy Catholic Church 
(not the Roman); the communion of saints; the 
forgiveness of sins; the resurrection of the 
body; and the life everlasting," as distinctly 
recognizing, in this sacred symbol, the Holy Spirit 
and His work, as we do the second person and his 
work. So also in the doctrine of the Atonement, 
should we do the same. 

I hasten to notice again that, and we have al- 
ready seen, as there is a dual aspect, prescriptive 
and penal, in the legal Atonement wrought out by 
Christ in his egoistic and altruistic redemption, so 
also there is a duality in the legal and spiritual as- 
pects of the Atonement in general. 

This analysis greatly simplifies the subject. 

In general, as already noticed, the work of 
Atonement is apportioned respectively to the sev- 
eral persons of the Holy Trinity, and in that ap- 
portionment, the work of renewing or recreating 
and the reestablishing in holiness of the soul of 
man is uniformly directly or indirectly accredited 
to the third person, and not to the second person. 
Bearing this in mind we have an easy and conclu- 



90 THE ATONEMENT. 

sive solution of the Paraclete problem in the follow- 
in,-- passage from John 16:7-16: "Nevertheless I 

tell you the truth: It is expedient for you that I 
go away ; for if I go not away, the Comforter — 
Paraclete — will not come unto you; But if I go, I 
will send him unto you. And he, when he is come, 
will convict the world in respect of sin, and of 
righteousness and of judgment (his general formu- 
lation of a creed): of sin, because they believe 
not on me; of righteousness, because I go to the 
Father, and ye behold me no more; of judgment, 
because the prince of this world has been judged." 
Immediately preceding this quotation, the Saviour 
tenderly discourses with his sorrowing disciples 
respecting the coming of the Comforter, or Para- 
clete, as entering upon the completion of the work 
which he had triumphantly opened up. 

It is proper to remark, in this connection, that 
the original of the word here translated "Comfor- 
ter," an incidental service, has in it a world more of 
precious spiritual meaning. Its etymology tells us 
that it may well be scripturaJly anglicised, as in this 
treatise, as it literally designates a friend and help- 
er called to ou,r side whose exhaustless resources 
are adequate to all our spiritual wants, and he may 
well be named in our language, the Paraclete, 
and in fact Paraclete is already in our English 
vocabulary as designating a personal agent of 
great diversity of activity. In him is provided 
the only agency competent to put fallen man 
in the personal posses-ion of the rights and 
liberties and experiences of salvation provided for 
us by Christ, but placed in our possession, not 



THE ATOXTMIXI. 9] 

by Christ himself but by the Holy Spirit. This 
Paraclete is in fact the peculiar scriptural proper 
name of the Holy Spirit, the third person of the 
Trinity, whose presence and service Christ so dis- 
tinctly promises to his sorrowing disciples. Heb. 9-14. 
Tn fact the work of Christ, however stupendous, 
would have been a blank parade without the official 
mission and varied service of this Paraclete. As just 
stated, this absolute and ordered mission of 
the Paraclete makes it the more astounding; that 
any treatise on the Atonement should fail to show 
a due appreciation of the Holy Spirit's work — The 
finisher and completer of Salvation. "Comforting" 
is only an incident. 

The Atonement most certainty embraces in the 
language and true import of Scripture, the funda- 
mental work of man's legal and moral deliverance 
from sin — from his legal and spiritual sinful status. 
That is to say, the official work, both of the second 
and of the third persons of the Godhead in the com- 
plete removal of the two obstacles :— The Logos 
and the Paraclete. 

As here stated in this Scripture quoted above, 
"the Spirit" proceedeth from the Father as well as 
he is sent by Him ; but the Son is repeatedly spoken 
of as "sending" the Spirit. (Appendix 0.) 

"Fillioque" still has a live interest. John 
14-25, John 15-26. (Appendix P.) The with- 
drawal of Christ, before the work of Salvation 
was completed, was to remove some unknown 
but otherwise insuperable obstacle to the send- 
ing or coming of the Spirit; and that obstacle 
seems to have been removed by the withdrawal and 



92 THE ATONEMENT. 

ascension of Christ, which evidenced that this was 
the completion of his official preliminary part of the 
work, the legal redemption. It was only when the 
banquet was thus prepared by Christ that the way 

was clear for the Spirit's work in His fullness, in 
bringing g into it. The Holy Spirit 's work was 

gloriously initiated, after the withdrawal, on the 
day of Pentecost This explanation of the puzzling 
expendiency of Christ's withdrawal seems to he sim- 
ple, adequate and satisfactory. Each of the second 
and third persons had in charge a specific part of 
the redemptive work, in the execution of which he 
was principal and the other secondary or co-ordi- 
nate. The specific work of the Spirit is the conver- 
sion and sanctification of souls, and when that 
work is done, the Spirit will probably retire, and 
Christ will return and resume his task, — the es- 
tablishment of the converts of the Holy Spirit — 
"The elect"— into the Empire of Peace, set forth 
in Isa. 9:6-7. 

This converting and sanctifying' mission of the 
Holy Spirit so characteristic of this administra- 
tion, plainly implies a certain measure of control 
or direction of his movements by the second per- 
son ; and if so, it must be by an agreed and joint 
covenant understanding. In a word, there seems 
to be here, the indication of a covenant relation 
of the three (3) persons — as certainly as be- 
tween the Son and the Father, who is so frequently 
represented as sending the Son, which is under- 
stood to involve a covenant relation. This cove- 
nant relation of the second and third persons is 
most real and sacred and should not be ignored or 



THE ATONEMENT. 93 

violated as plainly seems to be done in the perver 
theories of the Atonement above noticed. 

This expediency procedure may be somewhat 
analogous to the wonderful seeming delay of Christ's 
return until the Spirit's w T ork of converting souls 
is completed, as it will be. It was practicable for 
Christ's official work to be thus finished on the 
cross, but the laborious and progressive and 
patient work of the Spirit was committed to the 
coming ages, and the seeming delay of Christ's 
return seems to be reasonably awaiting the finish- 
ing of the Spirit's converting work. For in Matthew 
(24:30-31), when Christ comes gloriously with his 
angels, it is not wdth the view of converting souls — 
as this would be an assumption of the distinctive 
work of the Spirit — but of gathering together from 
all parts of the world, the souls already converted 
by the Holy Spirit; the Spirit's converting work 
then having been finished. But the Saviour's 
coming is not merely to gather together these re- 
deemed saints, but to establish and sensibly pro- 
claim his spiritual kingdom of peace, as proclaimed 
by Isaiah 9 :6-7 on this redeemed earth, including 
all the followers whom he shall bring with him, 
together w^ith all on earth gathered by the Para- 
clete since his ascension, — "the elect" — from the 
four winds of the w r orld. And out of this entire 
host enlisted under his blood stained banner he 
will organize the ultimate empire of peace foretold 
in Isaiah 9:6-7. This imperial reign of the Prince 
of Peace is to be the Christian's 'Golden Age. 
— the final outcome of the Gospel Scheme. 



94 THE ATONEMENT. 

It seems natural and proper in dispensing the 
benefits of his righteousness, so exclusively accom- 
plished through the agency of the Spirit, that Hie 
Son should hold, therefore, a directive relationship 
to the Spirit, as the practical or actual conversion 
of Hie individual soul is not the work of Christ 
but distinctively the work of the Spirit; indeed, 
this is properly considered officially and personally 
the cooperative work of the Spirit"; so true is this 
as stated, that when Christ returns it is not to con- 
vert souls by his personal agency. But the Christ 
when he returns is to gather together the elect or 
those already converted from one end of heaven to 
the other, his "elect," that is those who have already 
been converted by the Holy Spirit. (Matthew 24:30- 
31.) "And then shall appear the sign of the Son of 
man in heaven, and then shall all the tribes of the 
i .nth mourn, and they shall see (he Son of Man com- 
ing on the clouds of heaven with power and great 
glory. And he shall send forth his angels with a 
great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather 
together his elect from the four winds, from one 
end of heaven to the other." 

And this seems to be the only reasonable in- 
terpretation of his delay, as we may regard it, that 
he is awaiting this completion of tlie Spirit's work. 
just as the Spirit awaited the completion of 
Christ's work for which Christ promised to send 
him, before he withdrew from earth. And in due 
time the Spirit gloriously entered upon his work 
on the day of Pentecost. (Appendix Q.) 

It is very evident in the Scriptures, that the 
persons of the Trinity have a good understanding 



THE ATOM. MI. XT. 95 

among themselves, as to the particular part each is 
to take in the successful realization of the wonderful 
gospel scheme; and it is to be observed that no 
government officials on earth are more courteously 

deferential to each other than they. The Father 
takes the initiative, as in the exigency arising out 
of the occurrence of sin, by eliciting and proclaim- 
ing the promptings of love in vindication of the 
divine justice, wherein the law exhibited its weak- 
ness in not being able of itself to deliver the sinner 
from its own condemnation, its claims unappeased, 
but the Father's love soon awakens to a conscious- 
ness of resources transcending the claims of violat- 
ed justice. Co-eternally distinct from justice, but 
ever cooperative therewith, the Father's Love soon 
opens up the way, notwithstanding this inherent 
weakness of the law to magnify and make itself, 
the Law r , most honorable; wherein the impotence 
to deliver the disobedient held under its precept and 
condemnation by providing this saving righteousness 
of the incarnate Son of God, and stipulating with 
the Spirit, through the triumphant Son, to give 
life unto and to transform the character of the 
sinner to whom this savingly merited righteousness 
of Christ should be graciously given, credited or im- 
puted, so as finally to lift him to a state of glory, 
thus wisely reckoning with the state of inno- 
cence, the state of sin and the state of grace, after 
the great promise to Eve, Gen. 3 :15 and ultimately 
crowning the redeemed in a state of glory sur- 
passing man's original Edenic state, under multi- 
plied and increased effluence of revelation, with as- 



96 THE ATONEMENT. 

>ured guarantee against another lapse into disobe- 
dience and Bin. 

This was the redemptive disclosure made by 
(, » interview with Nicodemus. John 3:14- 

15: "For God so loved the world, that he gave his 
only begotten Son, thai whosoever believeth on him, 

should not perish, but have eternal life, for God 
sent not his Son into the world to judge the world, 
1 lit that the world should be saved through him." 
Our crowning thought is occupied with the glorious 
family in the Heavens, — there is no solitariness or 
isolation, hut the Father and the Son, and the Help- 
er in all work, His children and ministering angels, 
constituted a supremely happy society of loving per- 
sons in blissful communion, — AT-ONE-MENT. 

I. John 3:1: "Behold what manner of love the 
Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be 
called the children of God, and such we are. For 
this cause the world knoweth us not, because it 
knew him not." 

"Love divine, all love-excelling, 

Joy of Heav'n, to earth come down! 
Fix in us Thy humble dwelling, 

All Thy faithful mercies crown. 

Jesus, Thou art all compassion, 

Pure unbounded love Thou art; 
Visit us with Thy salvation, 

Enter every trembling heart. 

Breathe. O breathe Thy loving Spirit, 

Into every troubled breast; 
Let us all in Thee inherit, 

Let us find the promised rest. 

Take away the love of sinning, 

Alpha and Omega be; 
End of faith as its beginning, 

Set our hearts at liberty." 



THE ATONEMENT. 97 

Perhaps the foregoing discourse may dispose 
you to welcome the following extravaganza on the 
hopeless endeavor to give full expression to the un- 
utterably transcendent love of God in Christ Jesus 
our Jehovah. 



"Could we with ink the ocean fill, 

Were all the skies of parchment made, 
Were every blade of grass a quill, 

And every man a scribe by trade — 
To tell the love of God above 

Would drain the ocean dry, 
Nor would the scroll contain the whole 

Tho' writ all o'er from sky to sky." 



Miscellanea. 



Perhaps the most appropriate place for these 
miscellanea would be in the omitted appendix, the 
manuscript of which is preserved, and in other 
hands, may have in the future the benefit of the 
observations and criticisms of the printed text 
which is now committed to the public. 

1. Jehovah, the Proper Name of the Living and 
True God. 

The name, Jehovah, is singular and never used of any other 
being in the Universe. 

The word, Eiohim, is also a name of God and is used of an- 
gels, Ps. 8. But we must bear in mind that the word "god" in 
English does not mean any being in particular. Eiohim is plural 
from the root El, but when it relates to the true God often takes 
singular verb, and simply means power, and as used in Gen. 1:1 
has particular pertinence to the exercise of creative power in 
the natural world. It is the word at the bottom of the Moham- 
medan "Allah." and is in their minds an absolute fatalistic 
sovereign, without any expression of mercy, whereas the true 
Jehovah is perfectly compatible with the teachings of Christian- 
ity and with man's freedom as a moral agent. 

It is entitled to special notice that in the Revised Version 
as distinguished from the Authorised Version, the word "Je- 
hovah" occurs in the O. T. 6823 times. The simple explanation 
is the fact that in translation from one language to another it 
is the ordinary literary habit to transfer proper names, and not 
to translate them, which circumstance is worth noticing, because, 
as a rule, all proper names are significant. This is viewed as a 
reason for making use of the Revised Version of the Scriptures, 
for it is noticeable that there is no one thing to which God 

(98) 



MISCELLANEA, 99 

attaches more importance than to faithful and literal use of His 
own proper Name. Jehovah. 

The Name itself is formed from the Hebrew verb, "to h> " 
HAVAH, and points therefore to the Eternity of God, His Self- 
Existence and Self-Sufficiency and His Covenant Relations to 
all those redeemed from sin. 

2. Sabbath and Sunday. 

The word "Sabbath" — meaning a rest day — is used in the 
Hebrew language in Gen. 11:2-3, as designating the day on which 
God finished or rested from the work of the natural creation of 
mind and matter, and in view of that important circumstance, 
God consecrated or established it, as the religious memorial day 
of man's primitive religion. 

Religion itself arises from man's relation as a moral agent 
to his God, and this day was especially set apart in com- 
memoration of man's religious relation to the living God, as the 
Creator of the natural Universe. If the god worshipped is the 
true god, it may be true religion; if false, it will be false re- 
ligion. 

Religion, therefore, is not an institution of man, but was 
ordained of God for man, and this time was especially set apart 
for its observance. And this Seventh day was the religious day 
of man in his primitive or natural religion. Man, it should be 
particularly observed, had religion in Eden before the Fall 
and he fell from that original Religion which was the true re- 
ligion to him in his state of innocence. Notwithstanding this 
fall, God exacted of man afterward the observance of this sacred 
day and fortified its observance by sacrifices and ceremonies and 
providential dealings, and in the Decalogue, set it forth as the 
Fourth of the Commandments of that Moral Code until the 
''Promised Seed" should come for our Redemption. Indeed, the 
Scriptures seem to make it wonderfully evident that the Baby- 
lonish Exile was visited upon God's ancient people for their dis- 
regard of this sacred Day. It seems to be characteristic 
of the O. T. Scriptures that this day was to be looked upon as 
the very heart of the Moral Code of Man's religious obedience, 
as fallen but as having the promise of a Messiah and Deliverer 
in the future. Its function was that of conserving the sacredness 



100 MISCELLANEA. 

of religion by fallen man until the time of deliverance through 
a Saviour should arrive, and had that consecration of this day 
been observed by man, there would have been no polytheism or 
idolatry in the world. 

But our Sunday is the sacred first day of the week, and 
it commemorates the Resurrection of Christ, as the day which 
commemorates the completion of the spiritual creation by 
Him as the Sabbath, or 7th day, did natural creation. 
There is no explicit verbal but by action there is a substitution 
of the Lord's Day for the Sabbath Day, and the Jews as habitu- 
ated to the Sabbath or 7th Day, did not receive with universal 
readiness the change, whereas the Gentile converts very readily 
acquiesced in the Lord's Day which was the first day instead of 
the seventh day. The Saviour arose on the first day of the 
week, and within the next 24 hours, appeared 5 times, thus sanc- 
tifying the 1st day to His followers. In Acts XX, beginning 
at v. 7. we learn that Paul and a number of other missionaries 
were quartered at Troas, in the sacred observance of this 1st 
day as a day on which they would not travel. Then it was that 
Paul preached, and administered the Lord's Supper, and remained 
over until the day following to resume his journey. In I Cor., 
XVI: 2. Paul enjoins as an act of religious service, on all the 
Churches, that he had established, that they raise a church con- 
tribution in the interest of the poor members of the church at 
Jerusalem, of which James, the Lord's maternal brother, was 
pastor, Matth. 13-55, Mark. 6-3; thus assuming and actually as- 
serting the 1st day of the week as the religious sacred day of the 
Christians of those churches. And John in Rev. 1:10, announces 
to us as the condition of his Apocalyptic Visions, that he was in 
the spirit on that day— "The Lord's Day." And Heb. 4:8-10, gives 
the historic warrant for the Sunday rest. 

The contention between some Jewish and the Gentile Chris- 
tians over the sacred day continued to the time of Constantino, 
and was so serious a matter in his Empire that he issued a decree, 
321 A. D., establishing "Sunday" as the sacred day of religion, 
ostensibly with a view of conciliating his subjects in their 
religious controversies. As a matter of fact, there is reason to 
believe that Constantine's real purpose was that of heathenizing 
the Christian religion. For the 1st of the week was the day on 



MISCEL] am'.a. L01 

which idolaters worshipped the Sun, and you will note that 
Christians have appropriated this day from the worshippers of 
the Sun, as the Jews have taken Saturday from the worship of 
Saturn. Constantine, himself, when the decree was issued, was 
not a Christian but an idolater, a worshipper of the Sun. He 
was baptised on his death-bed, as professing the Christian re- 
ligion, in 336, 15 years after issuance of the decree in re- 
gard to the Sabbath, and the church was in a state of confusion 
over this decree for more than 100 years. We do not find our- 
selves hospitable to the ecclesiastical claims of any church 
that this day is a credit to them as a church, for settling the 
question of the observance of the sacred day of the Chris- 
tian Religion. Sunday is the Lord's day. 

Without elaboration, this distinction between Sabbath and 
Sunday seems plainly historical, therefore, with this funda- 
mental distinction between Natural Religion and Chris- 
tianity, or between Judaism which was a bolstering up of Na- 
tural Religion, and the Revelation of Christ, our Saviour. 

3. The Promised Seed. Gen. 3-15. 

There is a subordinate but exceedingly important point 
which we may here suggest. It is in connection with the promise 
that "the seed of woman should bruise the serpent's head." In 
Gen. IV: 1, we read "I have gotten a man ivith the help of Je- 
hovah." The four words, "with the help of" are a gratuitous 
substitution of the translators with nothing in the original cor- 
responding thereto which attributes to Eve help from Jehovah 
in giving birth to Cain, whereas the real object of Eve's men- 
tion was Jehovah, himself, as indicated by the particle "Eth" 
which is here transformed into a preposition but really is an in- 
dex finger or particle pointing out the object of the verb which 
in this case is Jehovah. In other words, by omitting these 
four words, she supposed that Jehovah was the promised seed. 
But it is a great mistake to suppose that her mistake needed 
any such rectification as though her mistake altered God's plans. 
Strangely enough, it is now desired to call attention, in the 
light of this suggestion, to Luke 11:11, "For unto you there 
is born this day in the city of David, a Saviour, which is 
Christ, the Lord." The word translated "Lord" in the 



L02 MISCELLANEA. 

passage giving the language of the angel is "kurios," and it 
points back to the Septuagint translation of the Hebrew Bible 
into Greek, about 150-200 years before Christ. The translators 
found no equivalent word in Greek for "Jehovah." but the Jews 
for some reason unknown to us, had read a substitute into their 
Bible for Jehovah, as in the 110th Psalm, and that substitute 
was akin to "kurios." And the word in the Angel's announce- 
ment to tha shepherds as taken from the Septuagint, is "kurio • 
so that the strictly literal rendering of the passage should be, 
"Who is the annointed Jehovah." "Kurios" in that place does 
not have the Article, as it ordinarily would, for the name Jehovah 
NEVER has the Article, and it may be remembered that "Kurios" 
thus translated "Lord" in this passage, is perhaps used 1,000 
times in the X. T., and is uniformly translated "Lord" where- 
"Lord" is a word of meaning entirely distinct from that of 
"Jehovah" as it designates a person exercising authority over 
subordinates, whereas Jehovah relates to Eternity of Existence 
and absolute and supreme authority over the Universe and self- 
sufficiency, the meaning of the two words thus being radically 
antithetic. Jehovah, the self-existent Supreme God of the 
Universe, the ultimate source of our Salvation from sin, and 
the Covenant God of Israel, the God whom Christians worship. 
Had the Revisers noted this distinction, we would have had 
a crowning recognition of the Deity of the Saviour, for His 
N nne would have been not "Lord Jesus," but "Jehovah Jesus" 
and the confession of Thomas would not have been in the Re- 
vised Version, "My Lord and my God" but "My Jehovah, and my 
God." It is certainly not over-refinement that there is reason for 
distinction in the use of such names. Indeed, it is believed that 
a good service, easily achieved, would be rendered by some one 
gathering together all the passages in the O. T. with the proper 
name, "Jehovah," and all the passages in the N. T. containing 
"Kurios" translated "Lord." 

4. The Dictated Treaty. 

Reference is made in the Preface of this book to the so- 
called Peace Treaty pending between the five associated Powers 
and Germany, as a part of the proceedings of the Great World 
War. 



MISCELLAM 103 

Reliable authority informs us that the population of Ger- 
many was about seventy million, say, two-thirds of the popula- 
tion of the United States at the beginning of this War. This 
belligerent nation has a marvelous history not now to be con- 
sidered. 

About the beginning of the summer of 1914, this warlike 
people entered upon one of the most disastrous wars of human 
history, which even at the present time of writing, October, 1919, 
is not yet formally closed by the U. S. For about thirty years 
they have been disciplining themselves into a state of special 
preparation for war that attracted the attention of the world 
and yet its continual politic advocacy of peace was very notice- 
able. This military discipline and preparation were so pro- 
nounced that it was customary for travellers to remark that the 
most thoroughly organized and disciplined army in the world 
was the Prussian. 

It is the understanding of the world now that the Germans 
during the whole of this time of nearly thirty years, were con- 
sciously preparing, on the part of its leaders, for a triumphant 
invasion, conquest, and subordination of the leading states of 
the civilized world. 

The German Empire consisted of twenty-five distinct petty 
kingdoms which, through the molding influence of Bismarck, 
had become the most powerful individual military state in the 
world. But this ambitious purpose had been, it is believed, the 
animating and active principle during these many years of this 
aspiring empire's over-mastering purpose. After the war had 
been formally entered upon and prosecuted from the early sum- 
mer of 1914 to the fall of 1918, with great harshness and almost 
irresistible success, all at once this powerful army experienced a 
check which was manifested in the petition for an armistice. 
The five associated powers — England, France, Italy, Japan, and 
finally the United States, had so effectually resisted and weak- 
ened this great army that on November 11, 1918, it petitioned for 
an armistice which was a great surprise, and it was immediately 
granted. It was assuredly anticipated that the conflict would 
certainly continue in full force until the following Spring. 
Doubtless this reversal was caused by the United States having 
tardily cast its sword into the scales. 



104 mim i.li am:a. 

As a result of this armistice, which immediately suspended 
the warlike activities in the field, public expectation excitedly 
and impatiently waited until the 28th of the following June, 1919, 
seven months, for the treaty; and this so-called Peace Treaty 
was signed by the Germans on this date at Versailles in France. 
It was a surprise to some that this Treaty did not result from 
any consultation or negotiations between the warring parties, 
but was a dictation, just as the word of a conqueror, to be ac- 
cepted and signed without reservation or change, which, when 
fully understood, was an imperious slam on account of their 
previous wicked conduct of the war. After some reluctance, 
the Germans, confessing their inability to resume the war (which 
made it equivalent to a victory and surrender), reluctantly 
signed the dictated Treaty. It was, therefore, a dictation on the 
part of the combination of the five victorious powers to be ac- 
quiesced in without change by the vanquished power; and this 
is the point to which it is now desired to ask special attention. 

The purpose of this so-called Peace Treaty was designed to 
set forth the conditions on which the war should close and a 
state of peace be re-established among the warring nations and 
peoples. 

It so happened that the preparation of this treatise had 
been pursued for sometime along the line of the Bible doctrine 
of the Atonement, or At-onement, of Christianity, as for cen- 
turies set forth in the Bible, and at once it was apparent that 
this proposed Treaty of the five associated superior powers imi- 
tated this Divine Treaty of the Atonement with the human race. 
For its purpose when distinctly apprehended, is seen plainly to 
set forth the conditions on which the warring conflict between God 
and the human race over sin shall be settled, and a state of per- 
manent peace and harmonious communion be established between 
God and the human race, Satan being the God and leader of 
this rebellious army. (2 Cor. IV: 4) It was not expected that 
God would negotiate with Satan, the leader of this hostile host, 
probably the greatest being he had created. That proposal by 
God of a re-established and permanent peace did not result from 
negotiations with Satan, but was announced after the occur- 
rence of man's assumption as a follower of Satan of an atti- 
tude of disobedience and hostility toward his Creator and legiti- 
mate moral ruler. 



MISCELLANEA. 105 

This armistice, for which the Germans petitioned, was signed 
November 11, 1918. It was continued until the 28th of June, 
1919, when this Treaty was reluctantly signed by the Germans, 
but this important dictated Treaty did not result from negotia- 
tions between the warring powers, it was dictated by the five 
victorious associated powers; and it .seems somewhat strange 
that the Treaty thus reluctantly signed by the Germans had not 
been fully understood and agreed on among the five triumphant 
powers themselves; and hence a somewhat confusing develop- 
ment of subsequent events. 

Indeed, at the present writing (October, 1919) the United 
States Senate is in session and especially considering the ap- 
proval of this very Treaty though already signed by the Ger- 
mans; and President Wilson has been canvassing the country in 
a popular appeal for its approval by us without modification as 
thus signed, but the present outlook is not clear and makes it 
questionable as to what the immediate result will be. How- 
ever, the country at large is resuming business and proceeding 
on the assumption apparently that the specific result of final 
peace will be attained, but peace is not yet officially proclaimed. 

It does not seem proper to pass over this subject without 
some allusion to this raging conflict, and it is not possible, in 
this connection, to deal with details, but the somewhat unsettled 
assumption prevails that the war is over, although the final terms 
of peace have not yet been entirely agreed upon. But it does 
not seem to the public practicable or probable that the war 
should be resumed, so that we are in the midst of somewhat un- 
settled throes of a greatly desired and somewhat anticipated 
final peace. As yet and as never before, public discontent is mani- 
fested in disorder and strikes, and the outlook of the most opti- 
mistic is hazy. 

Yet the anticipation of sanguine peace prophecies (Isaiah, 
Chapter IX, verses 2-7 inclusive,) seems in certain prospect of 
final realization and is anxiously and intelligently hoped for. 
However there seems to be an over-hanging mist of uncertainty 
as to these specific statements embracing all moral agents in the 
ultimate future; the interest of humanity occupying the fore- 
ground, as it does, of immediate interest and perhaps cover some 
points of the general outlook. Isaiah IX: 2-7. 



106 MI6< u.i am 

2. The people that walked in darkness have seen 
a great light; they that dwelt in the land of the shadow 
of death, — upon them hath the light shined. 3. Thou 
hast multiplied the nation, thou hast Increased their 
joy; they joy before thee according to the joy in har- 
vest, as men rejoice when they divide the spoil. 4. For 
the yoke of his burden, and the staff of his shoulder, the 
rod of his oppressor, thou hast broken as in the day of 
Midian. 5. For all the armor of the armed man in the 
tumult, and the garments rolled in blood, shall be for 
burning, for fuel of fire. 6. For unto us a child is 
born, unto us a son is given; and the government shall 
be upon his shoulder; and his name shall be called 
Wonderful, Counsellor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, 
Prince of Peace. 7. Of the increase of his government 
and of peace there shall be no end, upon the throne of 
David, and upon his kingdom, to establish it, and to up- 
hold it with justice and with righteousness from hence- 
forth even for ever. The zeal of Jehovah of hosts will 
perform this." 

It is sufficient to note the profoundly important circum- 
stance that this conflict between man and God originated with 
his Edenic fall, and, according to Scripture, is to be continued 
through all the ages down to a final settlement at the great 
Judgment Day, without this cloud of uncertainty as to a full 
universal settlement being fully dissipated. "But hope springs 
eternal in the human breast" and the faith of the human race 
in a final realization in the goodness of God in thus saving 
fallen man from the terrible and full consequences of sin and 
rebellion against God, according to his revealed will, is the 
supreme encouragement of our race. However, it may be con- 
fidently remarked that the final overthrow by God of rebellious 
Satan and his followers is to be a participation and realiza- 
tion of the experience of our race, although that leaves beyond 
man's knowledge and comprehension much that is unrevealed 
touching the ultimate state of God's moral government. We 
have profound reverence for the language of our Savior Himself 
— "Not my will, but Thine be done." 



MISOEL] axf.\. 107 

Whether the ultimate settlement of peace in the universe 
of God is to be by, as yet, an unrevealed recovery of all sin- 
ners to a state of holy obedience, or there is to be an unending 
continuance of sin and its perpetuity of retribution, transcends 
at present the reality of revelation and the possibility of rational 
human conjecture. 

Indeed, as a condition of the attainment of the final Peace, 
the annihilation of Satan and all sinners, does not, on its face, 
as some assume, seem to be a probability within the reach of 
possible conjecture, and there we must rest in silence, and yet 
not wholly deprived of hopeful and happy conjecture. 

5. The Two Procedures. 

The earnest students of this world's destiny seem to have 
exhausted their resources when they have pointed out in the 
light available the two distinct possible courses of its procedure. 

Tlie First is the simply Empirical, which is the one of an- 
tiquity still usually pursued by the nations. 

Second: The other for distinction may be named the Mod- 
ern, and is pursued untrammeled and with open minds and util- 
izes all that is known and approved in the Empirical. But in 
view of what is exclusively known as Empirical its precarious- 
ness as shown and manifested in misleading mistakes marking 
the most careful generalization of past experience, would cause 
the mind to call aloud for any and all possible additional help 
available, and in response to this call it is no longer possible in 
the broad light of our Christian civilization to ignore or exclude 
God from the movements of the world. It recognizes God as 
present throughout all time and Providence sustaining and gov- 
erning all events. Even the dullest heathen expect their fictitious 
gods to be reckoned with. 

Such a glowing forecast as that quoted from Isaiah comes 
most suitably within the modern conception of the destined ways 
of this world, as God governed. In plain words, it is best en- 
titled to our recognition as the super-empiricism of the Bible. 

This help is available to every one, and is not made up out 
of our own experiences, but is added to it. It might be illus- 
trated by an important case in our late war, which is still pend- 
ing, as Peace has not yet been proclaimed by the President. 



108 Mix l.I.l AXKA. 

The Bible is the one book which distinctly and vividly ex- 
plains the origin of war and makes plain the efficient relations 
of our God to peace and war. Its exact words are to be found 
In the Epistle of James 4:1 & 7. "Whence come wars and 
whence come fightings among you? Come they not hence even 
of your pleasures and lusts that war in your members?" 

"Be subject therefore unto God, but resist the devil and h e 
will floe from you". 

God in his nature is opposed to all sin whereas Satan is 
enthroned in all depraved human lust and passion. God is op- 
posed to sin in the human heart and life; hence he is opposed 
to war as prompted by sin, and opposes it accordingly even by 
righteous war. 

The Bible is full of God's warning on sin and hence also 
Christians are justly active in such wars; they are then in 
the path of duty and divine service. This solution of the sub- 
ject finds a pertinent and important illustration in our great 
war with Germany. 

Every reflecting citizen must have asked himself the ques- 
tion, "What was the justifying reason of our going over seas 
to war with a nation three thousand miles distant?" The answer 
should be fundamental and satisfactory on principle, and the 
answer is found by every plain citizen in the unquestionable 
fact that it originated from the outrages of the submariners 
that chiefly provoked our taking part in it. 

The short story of the matter is that the submariners were 
pirates, and as such they were supported fully by the navy and 
Emperor of Germany, s that these outrages were the acts of 
rman pirates; and yet in all modern nations piracy had been 
esteemed and treated as the enemy of mankind, and every na- 
tion was expected, and under obligations, in the interest of 
humanity, to exterminate them. The evidence that any man 
was a pirate was deemed as sufficient warrant for his execution 

n outlawed criminal. 

The Lusitania tragedy brought this submarine piratical 
business to a crisis. Then it was that President Wilson, still 
wrestling for peace, patiently and courageously undertook his 
marvelous diplomatic correspondence with Germany, and as 
notwithstanding their concessions they still treacherously con- 
tinued their acts of violence, then it was that he had the full 



MISCELLANEA. 109 

sympathy of the public at large in resorting to the only remain- 
ing alternative, which was war. 

It is not believed that any intelligent citizen will ques- 
tion for a moment that the piratical submarine outrages of 
Germany provoked us as a people to join in this war for their 
punishment and the vindication of our rights. Yet it has become 
to a certain extent a question, strangely enough, whether this 
war was undertaken for the punishment of our wrong doers 
and the vindication of our sacred public rights as a people, or 
for the overthrow of autocracy in Europe and the establishment 
of democracy. We certainly had no divine right or justification 
for warring on the monarchies of Europe, except to the extent 
that we had been wronged by them, and yet some of our citizens 
have glided into the fictitious opinion that we had engaged in a 
crusade against Monarchy, though such a wrong against man- 
kind as to be calling aloud for their suppression and the es- 
tablishment of democracy as the one needed blessing. 

According to the instructions of this divine counselor, to 
whose instructions we have referred, we would have been justi- 
fied in going to the ends of the earth for the punishment of the 
wrong-doing pirates, but we had no such warrant against the 
monarchies of Europe, great or small. Our provocation was 
only to the extent of our having been wronged, and the German 
Empire had wronged us as a pirate, and hence we were justified 
in going over seas to punish the wrong-doer. But when this 
Empire was overthrown and the Emperor himself fled the coun- 
try and the piratical wrong-doers were righteously suppressed 
and the people of Germany, who as a political community, hav- 
ing been sharply distinguished from this subverted band of 
pirates, would naturally suppose them to be entitled to recogni- 
tion on righteous and just terms of peace, unless some unex- 
pected disturbance interposed. Instead therefore of closing up 
our affairs with the German people, and trusting as usual to 
the w r ays of Providence for the logical outcome of our re- 
tributive conquest, our undertaking the wholesale reconstruction 
of monarchical Europe was an unexpected diversion and possibly 
a mistaken adventure that has already been the occasion of 
much public distress and anxiety. 

It is submitted that our theme of Atonement contemplates 
the final establishment of universal peace on earth, furnishes an 



110 MISCELLANEA. 

abundant warrant tor this free lance of a citizen, and we now 
e clearly the practicablenesa of such B Divine counsellor. 

The Inquiry forces itself upon us, "Why, instead of closing 
up our account with Germany, did we enter upon a general re- 
i miction of the governments of Europe?" We had in the 
dictation treaty given the greatest possible slam to the German 
authority a as having conducted the war with so much wrong- 
doing as to place them beyond the pale of negotiation. 

In view of the whole situation, especially the explanation 
given in justification of our European war as the punishment of 
wrong doing and the vindication of our rights, it does not seem 
very clear what we had to do with the re-construction of Eu- 
rope except to the extent that we had been wronged by Europe 
and were warranted in undertaking its reconstruction as a 
gratuitous blessing, illustrated by the divine at-onement treaty 
In which God refused negotiation with Satan after his wicked 
rebellion in Heaven on account of which he was overthrown, and 
with his followers, cast out of Heaven, which procedure, or 
dictation, was a retributive punishment and disciplinary humili- 
ation. Beyond that, the business of Europe would hardly 
seem to be our business and all adventuring on a world re-con- 
struction is liable to be considered quixotic, rather than a seri- 
ous discharge of national duty. 

It may be proper to add before dismissing this topic that 
had there been use made of it, Biblical counsel would have 
cleared the mind of the impression that God would ever make 
war on monarchy because it is evil or sinful. And if God has 
ever warred on monarchy as such without the guilt of sin, then 
it does not appear from history, and if God has not done so 
then Christians are not warranted in doing so, but only their 
evil conduct, as in the villianous attempt to wrong the nations 
by robbing them of their most precious right of self-government. 
No man could study the conditions through which the mon- 
archy of King David was established over Judah and Israel for 
over 200 years, or consult the first seven verses of the lotn 
chapter of Romans in its historic relations and political sig- 
nificance and authority, and rise from the study under the im- 
pression that God ever opposed any form of government that 
men (hose to organize and administer righteously and justly. 



MISCELLANEA, 1 1 1 

It is wrong doing, alone, on the part of such governments 

that is outside divine approval, and shows the structure to be 
on sand and not on rock foundation. IMatth. 24th (25, 26, 27). 

It is worthy of all observation that the first seven verses 
Of the 13th charter of Paul's Epistle to Romans is the most im- 
portant political doctrine in human language. Our American 
Declaration of Independence is an enthusiastic enunciation of 
its doctrine, but can be fully understood and appreciated only 
in the light that shines forth from it. This doctrine was cour- 
ageously written originally as a part of a letter by a Christian 
minister and missionary, named Paul, to a company of citizens 
of the Imperial city of Rome in the reign of the historic monster 
and persecutor, Nero. It has come down to us to be courageous- 
ly formulated by us as the Theistic foundation of our political 
Democratic system of government. Thos. Jefferson, w r ho was 
not a professed Christian, but a publicly proclaimed be- 
liever in God, was the author of our famous document. His 
language in regard to his authorship of it is in three words, "1 
wrote it". 

It may be said without hesitation, solemnly, that any man 
who disparages the sanction of the authority of God's approval 
in the administration of the government of the United States, 
is guilty of rank treason and deserves without shrinking or hesi- 
tation the summary fate of a traitor. 

6. Letter of Commendation. 

I have only an additional and parting word. In this en- 
deavor to interpret the Will and Way of God, as revealed for 
our instruction in the At-onement of our Bible, I have, at times, 
experienced encouragement from the kind and intelligent word 
of friends, and I feel a prevailing desire to submit some one of 
these utterances as a happily conceived and kindly expressed 
word of appreciation and encouragement, which I feel quite 
sure beloved and appreciative friends will pleasantly share with 
me. 

This noble letter is from such a source as to be highly prized 
by its recipient. It was received by me as a most pleasing sur- 
prise on the morning of my ninety-fifth birthday, March 23rd, 1919, 
from a highly esteemed friend, whose relation was close to my 



112 



MISt KM am;a. 



public life; as a fellow citizen and curator of the University 
of Missouri, one of the worthiest and most distinguished public 
men of the State, whose seventieth birthday was commemorated 
by a pronounced public banquet. I frankly confess that I 
hold his letter of appreciation and commendation in the most 
sacred esteem. 



"March 
Nineteenth 
1919 
Dr. S. S. Laws, 
1733 Q Street, 
Washington, D. C. 

My Dear Dr. Laws: — 

As your natal day is approaching I write this to send you my 
greetings and congratulations. You have spent a long and most 
useful life. Few men have put into their years in this world 
as much valuable service for their fellow men and their creator. 
You are honored by thousands whose lives you have inspired, and 
your influence for good and the betterment of your kind will 
expand as the years multiply. May God bless and sustain you 
and give you at last an abundant entrance into his heavenly 
kingdom where I hope to meet you, is the prayer of 

Your friend, 
(Signed) 



PART II 

The Trinity 

Why should this be looked on as one of the 
most mysterious, unintelligible, and least practical 
doctrines of the Christian religion? This is a 
mistake. On the contrary, it is one of the most 
obviously intelligible, and intensely practical. 

This paper, brief as it must be, proposes to 
make that appear, allowing for the limitation, with 
reasonable certainty; and that, too, by a strictly 
scientific method. 

All the laws of nature, which are its doctrines, 
rest on inductions upon the facts of nature. All 
the doctrines of the Bible, wrought into the creeds 
of Christendom, are presumed to be inductions on 
the facts — the verbal utterances — of the Bible. As 
Nature is and must be recognized as of ultimate 
and unquestioned authority in the one case, so the 
Bible must be in the other. Without this, neither 
secular science, nor Christian Theology can attain 
creditable standing. No one acquainted with the 
half-dozen radically distinct systems of philosophy 
which have gone to record, would dare assert that 
the objective validity of the so-called facts of nature 
has not been and is not now denied as stoutly as 
the most rampant infidelity, has ever repudiated 

(113) 



114 THE TPJNILY. 

the truthfulness and validity of the so-called facts 
of the Bible. The nihilism of philosophy is, in the 
domain of nature, the analogue of atheism in the 
domain of religion. 

But induction, in all cases, leads only to infer- 
ential and contingent knowledge; and all inferen- 
tial knowledge is faith knowledge. This is true 
even of the universality of the law of gravitation, 
and the law of gravitation, which is so fundamental 
to the whole system of nature, is no more strictly 
an induction on the facts of nature than is the 
doctrine of the Trinity as an inductor on the facts 
of the Bible, both equally fundamental to the whole 
system of Christian Theology. Hence, unques- 
tionably, the laws of nature as really rest on 
faith, ultimately, as do the doctrines of the 
Bible. As matter of fact, theologians proceeded in- 
ductively in dealing with the content of the Bible 
long before scientists thus dealt with nature. It 
is not true that induction originated with Lord 
Bacon; Professor Huxley says that the sciences 
would be just where they are had Bacon never lived. 
I confidently venture the affirmation that the 
Did urn- de omni out nullo of Aristotle rested with 
him on induction. But it was not then so thor- 
oughly practiced as now. And for a crowning 
proof of its application in Biblical work in the 
past, go to the writings of Augustine, (420 and 
Calvin 1564, A. D.), and it will be found that as 
few of their errors have required correction by 
subsequent investigators as of former by subse- 
quent scientist Much of the present parade 



IF. THI.MI \. [15 

about the new-born scientific study of the Bible is 

babbling pretence, without due warrant. 

The doctrine of the Trinity rests on Biblical 
induction, and has been accepted by every branch 
of the Christian Church as a settled doctrine for 

more than twelve hundred years. The agitation 
and final formulation of this doctrine, based on a 
minute investigation of all parts of the Bible, chiefly 
occupied the thought of the Christian Church during 
the first seven centuries of the Christian era. How- 
ever, it is no part of the present purpose to enter 
otherwise than incidentally either into the history 
or the metaphysics of the trinitarian controversy, 
but to confine attention to the plain, practical 
teaching of the Bible on the subject as a matter of 
fact. 

It is proposed to submit seven distinct Bib- 
lical propositions, or generalized statements, 
which summarize the teachings of the Bible on the 
most salient aspects of this subject, Each of the 
seven propositions to be submitted rests on a care- 
ful induction of the verbal facts contained in the 
Bible, and in the Bible alone, with an endeavor 
to avoid error by a strict observance of the proper 
rules of procedure in investigation. The method 
is scientific, and the result to be submitted, should 
be and seems to be, peculiarly satisfactory. 

1. The first proposition is this: The Bible 
teaches that there is but one living and true God. 

Dent. iv. 35, 39-' 'Unto thee (Moses) it was 
showed, that thou mightest know that Jehovah he 
is God; there is none else beside him." 



1 Ki Till; TRINITY. 

"Know therefore this day, and lay it to thine 
heart, that Jehovah, he is God in heaven above, 
and upon the earth beneath; there is none else.' ,# 

Deut, vi. 4 — "Hear, Israel; Jehovah, our 
God, is our Jehovah." 

2 Sam. vii. 22 — "Wherefore thou art great, 
Jehovah, God; for there is none like thee, neither 
is there any God beside thee, according to all we 
have heard with our ears." 

1 Chron. xvii. 20 — "0 Jehovah, there is none 
like thee, neither is there any God beside thee." 

Jer. x. 10, 11 — "But Jehovah is the true God; 
He is the living God and an everlasting King. The 
gods that have not made the heavens and the earth, 
these shall perish from the earth, and from 
under the heavens. " 

Isa. xliv. 6, 8 — "Thus saith Jehovah, the King 
of Israel, and his Redeemer, Jehovah of hosts: I 
am the first, and I am the last, and beside me there 
is no God." 

X. T. 1 Cor. viii. 4— "There is no God but 
one. ' ' 

*It should not be overlooked by readers of the Bible that 
Jehovah is not an appellative, but the proper name of the one 
living and true God, and is never used to designate any other 
being. "President of the United States" is an appellative, and 
means no one in particular, but any one who may hold that 
office, but "Andrew Jackson" is a proper name, and designates 
a particular being. The 1901 edition of the Revision of the 
Bible transfers this proper name in the Old Testament, instead 
of translating it by the appellative "Lord." This is as it should 
be. And in the New Testament, "Lord," as a rule, is the equiva- 
lent of Jehovah. The explanation is interesting, but cannot be 
given here. But I will say that it furnishes an unanswerable 
argument for the Deity of the Christ, 



I hi. TRINITl . 117 

Mark xii. 29— "Jesus answered: The first 
(commandment) is: Hear, Israel, the Lord our 
God, the Lord is one/' 

Matt. xvi. 16 — "And Simon Peter answered 
and said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living 
and true God." 

Jno. xvii. 3 — "And this is life eternal, that 
they should know thee, the only true God, and him 
whom thou didst send even Jesus Christ." 

Gal. iii. 20 — "Now a mediator is not a media- 
tor of one; but God is one." 

1 Tim. ii. 5 — "For there is one God, one media- 
tor also between God and man, himself man, 
Christ Jesus." 

Shorter Catechism, Question 5: "Are there 
more Gods than one?" 

Answer: "There is but one only, the living and 
true God." 

These selected quotations must serve as samp- 
ling the content of the Bible. It will be seen that 
the answer to Question 5 of the Shorter Catechism 
is a conclusion, attained inductively. The writ- 
ings which constitute the content of the Christian's 
Bible are perfectly and rigidly consistent in their 
monotheism. All the divine paths therein lead 
from and to this citadel. 

Xature is older than the oldest utterances in 
this Bible. The relation of these two revelations 
is a question of profound interest, but cannot now 
be treated. The Bible republishes in verbal form 
the whole lesson of nature, and then super-adds 
a supernatural revelation of the unique and dis- 
tinctive doctrines of Christianity. The two, prop- 



lis 1 HE TRINTTY. 

erly understood, make one continuous and consis- 
tent whole. 

The relation of the two, in a general way. was 
so aptly illustrated by a class-room incident, that 
1 venture to give my readers the benefit of it. 
There was a Japanese student in my Seminary 
class in Apologetics; and this question was before 
the elass. I had submitted the view, that m dif- 
ferent ways the same God is revealed in nature and 
in the Bible, but that it was only by the help of the 
Bible that we are able to read the lesson in nature. 
BO that those without the Bible do not from 
nature alone learn of the true God. An induction 
from a finite world cannot reach an infinite object 
as its conclusion. As the class seemed to wrestle 
vith this relation as a proposition difficult to 
understand, I requested Mr. Tosie Takada— who 
died last year a missionary in his native land— to 
remain when the class was dismissed. I then asked 
him to write for me on the blackboard, the Lord's 
Prayer in the Japanese language; and to be sure 
t„ be present at the next lesson. When, on review, 
the point recurred, I called the attention of the 
class to the markings on the board, and, excepting 
Mr. Takada. called for an interpretation thereof. 
of course, it was dumb show. When this was 
realized, 1 called on Mr. Takada to take the pointer 
and assist us in understanding, or seeing, what 
. but hid from us. He did so, and we all 
►predated the helpful illustration it gave us of 
the doctrine that it is when we look through the 
of the Bible and not otherwise, that we can 
read the lesson in nature- and see that, as far 



Till' TKINm . 1 19 

as it goeis, it is the same lesson in nature that we 
have in the Bible respecting God.* 

The inductions on Bible phenomena are much 
simpler than on natural phenomena. The reason 
is, that the Book plainly and with great simplicity, 
but sporadically, tells us what its lesson is, and 
commits the language to us, to be read and under- 
stood, and to be verified in every part by all the 
parts. Hence, even our natural theology proper is 
not a science of discovery, as in natural science, 
but of construction. Much less is it true of Chris- 
tian or Biblical theology. The induction whereby 
a school boy may now verify the law of gravitation 
is vastly easier than was the induction of discovery 
by Xewton and his co-laborers, formulated in the 
Principia. So now, the Doctrine of Monotheism 
having been didactically although sporadically or 
miscellaneously announced, our induction thereon is 
not for discovery, but for constructive consis- 
tency and confirmation. Is the given utterance a 
part of the text? Is it isolated and incongruous, 
or in harmony with the whole! The doctrine of 
creation does not admit of an induction of dis- 
covery, but only of apprehension, construction and 
confirmation, the fact having been verbally an- 
nounced in the Bible, Under the title "Atom" in the 

*In an essay, largely elaborated, a study of the various re- 
ligions of heathenism attests that except where the light of the 
Bible shines, there is and has been since centuries before the 
Christian era, no knowledge of the God — the tri-personal God — 
whom we worship. Man began with God, as taught him in 
Eden, but the knowledge died out, and it is revived only by 
supernatural revelation. It is only by teaching this doctrine to 
the rising generations that it is kept alive in the human mind. 



120 THE TRINITY. 

British Encyclopedia (IX Ed.), a master hand 
shows that nature confirms this doctrine didactically 
set forth in the Bible, by leading us up to the very 
footstool of the Creator. 

2. The second proposition is that — This one 
God bears in the Bible the three names of Father, 
Son and Holy Spirit. 

This fact is so conspicuous in familiar Scrip- 
tures that there is no occasion for dwelling upon 
it. The facts for the exposition and induction are 
full-handed. For example, Gal. iv. 6 — "God hath 
sent forth the Spirit* of his son 2 into your hearts, 
crying Abba, Father." 1 Here, in this short pas- 
sage, is the comprehensive name God, and the 
three personal names occur. 1 Cor. viii. 6 — u There 
is one God, the Father 1 of whom are all things — 
and one Lord Jesus Christ, 2 by whom are all things 
and we by him." 2 Cor. xiii. 14— "The grace 
of the Lord Jesus Christ; and the love of God, 1 
and the communion of the Holv Spirit 3 be w 7 ith you 
all." 

Said Joseph Cook in my hearing, in the 
Chicago Parliament of Religion: "I once saw chis- 
eled on the marble above the tomb of the great 
(Mohammedan) Emperor Akbar, in the land of 
the Ganges, the hundred names of God. Let us 
lie ware how we lightly assert that those names are 
one. ... I care not what name you give to 
God, if you mean by him a spirit omnipresent, 
eternal, omnipotent, infinite in holiness and every 
other attribute of perfection." I must be per- 
mitted to say that, for my part, I do care; for we 



THE TRINITY, 121 

might have this entire list of names and be in the 
dark as to the vital and most important name of 
Father, Son and Holy Spirit Said President Wash- 
burn, of Roberts College, Constantinople : "The nine- 
ty-nine names of God which the good Moslem con- 
stantly repeats, assign these (moral attributes) to 
him," (Parliament of Religions, 5G9, Washburn), 
but it must be added, that in the Creed of Islam 
there is no communion between Allah and his 
creatures; no incarnation, no divine brother and 
no heavenly Father. The name " Father" does not 
occur in the list of 99 names. "My soul," says 
the Psalmist, "longeth, yea, even fainteth for the 
living God, who pitieth us as a father his children." 
This cannot be said by the Mohammedan. Indeed, 
it may be truthfully said that the Allah of Islam 
is not the Jehovah-God whom Christians worship, 
for the constitution and character of the two are 
not only different, but in contrast and incom- 
patible.* The Mohammedan does not believe in 
the same God that we do nor in God's Son. 

3. The third proposition is that— These three 

* 'There is no God but God," is the keynote of the Theology 
of Islam. But thereby the Mohammedan not merely denies all 
polytheism, but also the Trinity of persons in the Godhead. He 
holds that to affirm the doctrine of the Holy Trinity is to be 
guilty of the damnable sin of "shirk," i. e., polytheism. Al- 
mightiness, untempered by holiness or mercy, dominates the 
character and conduct of Allah, who terrifies us by his supra- 
lapsarian avowal as creator: "verily I will fill hell altogether 
with genii and men." (Sura xi. 119). As the God of Islam is 
not the God of Christianity, hence the legitimacy of missions 
to the Mohammedans. (Kellog's Hand-Book of Comp. Reli. pp. 
16-23). 



122 THE TRINITY. 

names are not used interchangeably nor indiscrimi- 
nately, but distinctivehj. 

Those names are used in the Bible with the 
discrimination and precision of proper names. 
The Spirit is never called the Son; the Son is 
never called the Spirit ; and neither the Son nor 
the Spirit is ever called the Father. This usage 
is an established usage, and stands on the very 
face of the Scriptures. It is a case of uniformity 
without a variation. There is no more confusion 
here than in a family as to father, mother and the 
children; each is a term of definite designation. 

4. The fourth proposition is that — These three 
names are severally objective to each other. The 
audience and the speaker are objective to each 
other. This teaching presents a double and most 
interesting aspect in both language and action. 
(1) As to language, each of the three not only 
speaks of self, but also speaks to and of each of 
the others. And, (2) as to acts, their operations 
among themselves are so orderly and uniform as 
to mark an established mode of procedure relative 
to each other. For example: (1) "If a man love 
me (the Son 2 ), he will keep my word; and my 
Father 1 will love him, and we will come unto him 
and make our abode with him. . . . and the 
word which ye hear is not mine, but the Father's, 
who sent me. These things have I 2 spoken unto 
you while yet abiding with you. But the Com- 
forter, 3 even the Holy Spirit, whom the Father 1 
will send in my name, He 3 shall teach you all 
tilings, and bring to your remembrance all that 
I 2 said unto yon." (John xiv. 23-26.) In this 



I B K 'I KIN ITT. L23 

scripture the three — Father, Son and Spirit—are 

Bel forth in actual and active correlations, dis- 
tinctly and distinctively. The Father sends the 
Son and the Spirit, but the Spirit never sends the 
Son, nor does either of them ever send the Father. 
(2) Again: "But when the Comforter* (Advocate- 
Paraclete) is come, whom P will send unto you" 
( Filioque) John 14-26, John 15-26 "from the Father, 1 
even the Spirit" of truth, which (who) pro- 
ceedth (goeth forth) from the Father, 1 He 
shall bear witness of me?" (John xv. 26; 
xvi. 7) In this passage we have a double 
enumeration ( 3 , 2 , ! and 3 , 1 > 2 ) of the three names. 
Each of the three names occurs twice in this brief 
passage. And here, again, we have the Father, 
Son and the Spirit in their objective and orderly 
relations to each other, plainly expressed both in 
language and in operation in this duplex or two- 
fold statement. 

Surely it is too obvious to admit of question 
that in this complex sentence these three names 
are used with relative and distinctly objective dis- 
crimination. 

This circumstance of settled usage is some- 
times spoken of as involving divinely economic and 
subordinate relations, but, whilst in a proper 
sense that is true, we are not now concerned about 
technicalities. It is the simple Bible fact of 
which we wish to speak without refinements. It is 
plainer without than with them. In this matter, 
it appears plain that order is heaven's first law. 
And this subject does not breathe as freely and 



124 THK TRINITY, 

naturally, in the attentuated atmosphere of meta- 
physics as in the normal air of every-day Christian 
experience. 

5. The fifth proposition or inductive group of 
Bible teachings is this — The personal pronouns are 
i used by and of each of these three names. 
This is done so frequently, explicitly, and un- 
equivocally as to put it beyond reasonable question- 
ing that of each of these names, the Father, the 
Son, and the Holy Spirit, is, in some proper and 
legitimate Bible sense, the name of a Person. 
Various Scriptures abundantly warrant this propo- 
sition: (1) I might repeat here the passages al- 
ready quoted under the preceding head, but other 
Scriptures in abundance are at our service; in 
one chapter just quoted (John xiv.) personal pro- 
nouns occur over seventy times. (2) "Now / (the 
Son) go unto Him that sent me." (John xv. 5.) 
Here we have the first person, "I" and "me" of 
the Son, and, the third, " Him' ' of the Father. (3) "7 
am come down from heaven, not to do mine own will 
but the will of Him that sent me" — similar as 
to the first and second persons, but somewhat 
emphasizing the personal qualities. (John vi. 38.) 
(4) On the Mount of Transfiguration, a cloud of 
bright effulgence enveloped the six persons present, 
viz.: Peter, James, and John, Elijah, Moses, and 
the Christ — "And behold, a voice out of the cloud 
said: 'This is my beloved Son in whom / am well 
pleased; hear ye him.' " (Matt. xvii. 5.) We have 
the same personal pronouns in these two cases, and 
those used of the Father in one are used of the 
Son in the other. (5) The baptism of Jesus makes a 



THE TIUNl'l v. L25 

valuable and impressive contribution. The voice 
of the Father 1 audibly and directly addressed the 
Son 2 , and tin 4 Holy Spirit 1 , in dovelike form, sen- 
sibly and visibly descended upon him. The three 
Persons unite in this sensuous manifestation — this 
once and only this once, but that was enough, as it 
formally and conspicuously ushered the Incarnate 
Second Person upon the stage of His public earthly 
career with the consensus, and on either hand, 
the support of the other two persons, who never 
forsook Him till in the article of death, the sur- 
charged cloud of divine wrath vs. sin over-shad- 
owed his soul, and hid for a time the light of the 
Father's face — "Why hast Thou forsaken me?" 
But it did not extinguish the presence and sus- 
taining power of the Holy Spirit in that most 
tragical event in the records of time. "0 my Father, 
not my will, but thine, be done. I came not to do 
my own will, but the will of him that sent me." 
(Ps. xxii. lxix. 16-21; John iii. 34; 1 Tim. iii. 16; 
Heb. ix. 14.) 

It is believed that, under this 4th head, the 
personality of the Holy Spirit should be specially 
emphasized, and the means, of doing so are suf- 
ficiently abundant. 

(1) "But Peter said, Ananias, why hath Satan 
filled thy heart to lie to — margin, to deceive — the 
Holy Ghostf" (Acts v. 3, 9.) Lying is a pecu- 
liarly personal offence; it can only be done by a 
person to a person. Yet, Ananias lied to the Holy 
Ghost, which plainly implies His personality. It as 
plainly implies this personality as that of Ananias. 
You cannot lie to a principle, nor to an influence, 



126 THE TBINITT. 

nor to an attribute. Lying is one of the most in- 
famous of all sins — in its intensest degrees and 
consequences, it is worse than theft or murder, 
which it so readily compasseth. It was faith in a lie 
that ruined our race; and faith in the truth as it 
is in Jesus, the Christ, is the only remedy. 

(2) 1 Cor. xii. 11, 12; "All these (Charismata) 
worketh the one and the same Spirit, dividing to 
each severally even as He will." In this passage 
the voluntary personal action of conscious dis- 
crimination is predicated of the Spirit. The one 
will of the Deity is exercised in the personal acts 
of the Holy Spirit, as has just been seen in the 
cases of the "Son and Father "— three distinctive 
individual operations of the one fundamental 
Power or infinite attribute of freedom. 

(3) Acts xiii. 2-4 — The scene is laid in Antioch, 
in Syria, a city of more than half a million, where 
the disciples were first called Christians. "And 
as they ministered to the Lord, and fasted, the 
Holy Ghost said, Separate me, Barnabas and Saul, 
lor the work whereunto I have called them. Then 
when they had fasted and prayed and laid their 
hands on them, they sent them away. So they be- 
ing sent forth by the Holy Ghost/' etc. The per- 
sonal pronoun is here articulately used in two 
cases and personal conduct — speaking and ordering 
a deliberate procedure — is attributed to the bearer 
of it. This citation is a very simple, unequivocal 
and conclusive proof of the Personality of the Holy 
Spirit 

(4) John xvi. 7-15: These nine verses consti- 
tute — relative to our theme — one of the most re- 



I III-. TIMNI'I Y. l-< 

markable passages in the Word of God. The per- 
sonal pronouns therein are used of Christ and of 
the Spirit between twenty and thirty times; they 
are used by Christ of the Spirit with the same free- 
dom as of Himself, and with greater frequency. 
Comment is needless. The Savious thus deliberately 
applied, in this utterance, the personal pronouns 
more frequently to the Holy Spirit than to Him- 
self — at least ten times to Himself and thirteen 
times to the Holy Spirit. In plain Bible sense, the 
Holy Spirit is as truly and really a Person as the 
Christ Himself. This seems to be a fair inference. 

(5) The only additional proof of the person- 
ality of the Spirit that will be given is the sin 
against the Holy Spirit. Whatever may be the 
view taken of this sin, there is a principle under- 
lying it, and that is, that just as crime, in its es- 
sential nature, is an offense against the State only 
as a legal personality with moral traits, so sin is an 
offense against this personal member of the God- 
head. Crime in the natural government, is the 
analogue of sin in the moral government of God. 
Hence, David touched the quick when, in his con- 
trite confession, he said: "Against thee, thee 
only— a Personal God — have I sinned. " In a word, 
this sin against the Holy Spirit, upon which the 
Saviour lays such emphasis, forcibly assumes that 
the Holy Spirit is a person and divine. That much 
is certainly true, whatever the specific offending act 
or state. 

Without pursuing this matter further, the evi- 
dence adduced seems adequate to make it appear 
beyond a reasonable doubt, that the teaching of the 



128 THE TRINITY. 

Bible is that the Father, the Son, and the Holy 
Spirit are three Persons. A Person is a distinctly 
subsisting, self-conscious moral agent This defini- 
tion may be validly predicated of each person in 
the Trinity. We never properly predicate person- 
ality of any agent destitute of the attributes of 
moral agency — conscious intelligence, conscious 
freedom. 

Eere we may again cite the Catechism as sum- 
marizing inductive proofs. Shorter Catechism 
Question 6: "How many persons are there in the 
Godhead? Answer: There are three Persons in the 
Godhead; the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost; 
and these three are one God." Each of these 
names of the one Living God, is, in some legiti- 
mate Bible sense, the name of a distinct person. 
I will repeat the definition, which is believed to 
be validly applicable to each of these divine per- 
sonalities: A person is a distinctly subsisting, 
self-conscious moral agent. This, of course, im- 
plies that the self -consciousness of the Godhead 
has, what involves no great mystery, a threefold 
function. Every solar ray has the threefold func- 
tion of light, heat and actinism. 

6. The sixth generalized statement or propo- 
sition is this: This language of the Bible is not 
empty sound, mere verbosity, setting forth super- 
ficial impersonations of imaginary and fictitious 
distinctions; but, on the contrary: It is evident, 
even from the citations adduced, that this language 
points out and reveals to us, that there is and must 
be a distinction back of this language — back of 
these words, in the very nature of God, who uses 



THE TRINITY. 129 

this language of Himself, which distinction lays the 
foundation for the tri-personal manifestation and 
expression of it, in word and act, as we have seen, 
in the familiar and undisguised phraseology and con- 
duct of every day life. Nor is it arrayed in the 
technicality of the schools. It is not illusory, nor 
deceptive language. The distinction between dif- 
fering subsistencies is as real as that in the consti- 
tution of our own minds underlying knowing, feeling 
and willing — intelligence, sensibility, will. We have 
no innate ideas, but we do have innate powers of 
mind and body. This popular constitutional, three- 
fold distinction, imbedded in the very nature of the 
human mind, is not adventitious or acquired, but 
original — innate or connatural — and lies back of 
the will and quite beyond its control, and back of 
all language expressive of it, and seems to be sug- 
gestive of a sort of kinship to the Creator of the 
soul. In like manner, this distinction of sub- 
sistence in the tri-personal nature of God is 
constitutional. He is not tri-personal because 
He chooses to be so, but is so from the neces- 
sity of His nature; and the distinction, therefore, 
lies back of His will and beyond His control. The 
main point before the Nicene Council was whether 
the Son existed by the will of the Father, as Arians 
had asserted, so that in their view, He was in fact 
a created being, however exalted. The Bible has 
simply disclosed to us a state of facts which has ex- 
isted from all eternity. Our God is tri-personal not 
of choice, but from the constitution of His being, 
and cannot be otherwise. Nature might illustrate, 
but was, and is, inadequate to reveal, this constitu- 



130 THE TRINITY. 

tion of the Godhead. It has taxed the resources of 
Greek with one of the richest human vocabularies, 

to set forth the phenomena from which it is an im- 
mediate inference, noumenally intuited, and cog- 
nized by faith. 

And if our limited minds are competent, con- 
sistent with substantial oneness, to unquestionably 
embody such a radically threefold or more complex 
distinction of powers as that pointed out, so far as 
avc know, there may be, with no greater mystery as 
the eminent Platonic scholar, Archer Butler, has 
reverently conjectured, a score or more of these per- 
Bonally subsisting distinctions in the nature of the 
Infinite and Eternal God. This psychological il- 
lustration is merely suggestive, as was St. Patrick's 
shamrock, and not an analogy or a logical parallel 
that "goes on all fours." What we do know is, 
-imply that three, and only three, persons have been 
revealed to us; and, considering the amount of 
wrestling that this modest installment has occa- 
sioned us, it would seem presumptions and pre- 
posterous for us not to be satisfied with what we 
have. And, even that much we do know only by 
faith. To long for a revelation to us of any more 
persons, in this stage of our being, than the three, 
would transcend the demands of our condition and 
the teachings of the Bible. The reason for the 
three, as we may see, is made seemingly apparent 
in the conception, preparation and realization of 
of the plan of salvation, but not for any more than 

three. 

The lesson thus gathered from Scripture teach- 
on the very face of the Bible, 






THE TRIXITY. j;;] 

plainly that, instead of its being strange, it could 
not be otherwise than, as it has occurred in fact, 
that the plain readers of the Bible, in all ages and 
countries, should have understood from it that 
there are, in the only living and true God of the 
Bible, these three Persons, the Father, the Son and 
the Holy Spirit, three distinctly subsisting and 
divinely acting personalities. The "us" in the first 
chapter of Genesis, seems like a pre-intimation of 
Plurality.* There is no novelty in this suggestion 
lying on the very face of our Scriptures that seems 
to respond to the social nature of man, to utterly 
transcend all the vanities of Polytheism, and to fur- 
nish the soul an ultimate association in Heaven 
that shall never grow old and keep charmingly 
awake the communion of our social natures This 
is the Bible God and the God of Christians It 
was not the speculations of Greek philosophy, but 
the demands of a scriptural Christian consciousness 
that persistently called, in the early Church, for 
a eredal statement of this doctrine of one God of 
Three Persons, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. 

It is in the name of this triune God that we 
Have all been baptized, and that the missionary 
work of the Church, in disciplining the nations, 
was originally instituted and is now conducted; 
and it is in relation to the three persons and their 
society that these disciples or converts are organ- 
ized into His service and enjoyment here and here- 
after. 

If scriptural teaching shows that the Holy 
Spirit is a person, as has been so plainly seen and 

*See Wltslus on "The Covenant." 



532 TIIF - TKIXITT. 

emphasized above, there is not and cannot be, the 
shadow of a doubt as to the personality of the 
Father and the Son. History shows this. 

It is noted, that in years past, the doctrine of 
the Holv Spirit had seemingly slipped or faded 
out of the distinct consciousness of the Church; 
but is it not again awakening? This present Chris- 
tian era, or administration, is, in the orderly pro- 
cedure of the triune Godhead in accomplishing 
man's salvation, properly esteemed, by way of em- 
inence, the administration of the Holy Spirit, which, 
in its conspicuous and obtrusive character, was 
ushered in by himself on the Day of Pentecost, as 
Christ promised. In removing the two and only ob- 
stacles in the way of fallen man's return to the di- 
vine favor, the Godhead, in the person of the Father, 
conceived the plan of salvation, and in the person 
of the Son, prepared for it to the extent of remov- 
ing the external obstacle of the broken law, opening 
the door for and joining the Father in sending the 
Spirit ; and, then, the Holy Spirit follows up this 
preparation and advantage of an open door and 
completes the work by removing the internal bar- 
riers, or the evil heart of unbelief. Of him all the 
guests are effectually called, with a keen relish for 
the viands of the royal feast, prepared by the Son 
of the King. Say what we may in our creeds and 
preaching, the bestowment of the blessing of sal- 
vation is suspended on the good pleasure of the 
Holy Spirit. Personal election and glorification are 
realized only as the fruit of his work. "Jesus an- 
swered, Verily, verily I say unto thee, Except a man 
be born anew even of the Holy Spirit he cannot en- 



PHB TRINITY. L33 

tor into the Kingdom of God." In this sphere of 
gracious and divine personal activity, it may be 
truthfully said again: that order is heaven's first 
lair. This gift of the new birth, the Spirit bestows 
as he will. For this new birth, man is absolutely de- 
pendent on the divine will as operative in the Holy 
Spirit, the third person. But the rational ground of 
that determination of the Spirit's action is the 
secret of election — individual election. 

7. The seventh and only remaining proposition 
to complete our statement of the Bible teach- 
ing, which clusters around our theme, is this: 
That the sacred Scriptures affirm four classes of 
divine marks or predicates of each one of these 
three persons: 1. Divine names and titles; 2. 
Divine attributes; 3. Divine works; 4. Divine wor- 
ship. So ovenvhelming is the flood of evidence 
from the Holy Scriptures in support of the details 
even of this glorious doctrine of the Trinity, that 
it seems superfluous to dwell upon it any further. 
Remarks : 

1. Neither of these persons is God without or 
apart from the others. Hence the doctrine here 
presented is as wide apart as the poles from tri- 
theism, or the belief in three co-equal gods. They 
are persons of one and the same God. When Dr. 
W. E. Channing, the supremely distinguished Uni- 
tarian of New England, brought this charge of 
tritheism against Trinitarians, it must be said that 
he created his owm difficulty, and did not find it 
in the Bible, nor in orthodox creeds, such as the 
Westminster Confession of Faith. But Dr. Channing 



L34 'I EE TJMNI J V. 

was bo impressed by the miracles and supernatural 

element in the character of Jesus, that he supposed 
him to be an incarnate angel, who set for man a 
shining example of Bacrifice and devotion to duty. 
Dr. Channing's Saviour, therefore, was neither God 
nor man, a bewildering state of fact which calls 
forth a sorrowing exclamation. 

The Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit are 
one God, and only one; this one true God of the 
Bible is the Father, and the Son and the Holy 
Spirit. He is not the infinite, nor the absolute, 
nor any other abstraction; Hegelian or Neopla- 
tonic, nor Manzelian zero, but a living Being — a 
concrete, personal Being — a Being absolute, in 
that He is absolved from all dependence on aught 
outside of or other than Himself; an infinite living 
Being, in that he is subject to no limitations other 
than those that are internal, and that arise out of 
his own nature. The speculators who deny personal- 
ity to God because it implies consciousness, which is 
possible only under limitations, need to be taught 
that the God of the Bible is revealed as subject to 
abounding limitations, but they are all ab intra- 
internal conditionings. The persons condition or 
limit each other, and each attribute limits and con- 
ditions every other attribute. This is a mark of 
self-sufficient perfection. 

Of course, the persons, as co-equal and co- 
eternal, constitutionally condition each other in 
actual operation and manifestation, as seen above; 
and they cannot be fairly regarded as merely 
figurative, or metaphorical and fictitious impersona- 



I m; TRINITY. L35 

lions of attributes, such as love, wisdom and the 
like, or of manifestations or operations, whether 
of creation, providence or grace, but as designating 
subsisting and predetermining properties of the 
internal divine nature of the one living and true 
God. 

It is almost obvious to remark that when the 
Scriptures speak of the Son of God as the "be- 
gotten," or "only begotten," (John iii. 16. Gr.) 
derivation and dependency, as in the human rela- 
tion, are not implied. The importing of this 
derivation into the divine nature was the proton 
pseudon of Arianism. The language descriptive of 
the human relation is chosen as best serving to 
suggest to our finite minds the eternal and un- 
derived filiation of the Son of God to the Father. 
Filiation and procession are expressive of the 
transcendent and co-eternal relations of Father, 
Son and Spirit. 

2. The objection that the word Trinity is not 
in the Bible, is adequately answered, in that the 
thing meant is in the Bible, and if the thing 
designated by the word is in the Bible, there can 
be no reasonable objection to the word itself, for 
the content of these propositions, laid down and 
explained above, which summarize the teachings of 
the Bible, constitutes the content of the word Trini- 
ty — a term expressive of the intelligible psychologi- 
cal concept. 

In view of what is said above, a like answer 
may be made in regard to the use of the word per- 
son, to designate the revealed characters of the 
divine hypostasis. Simple existence does not 



136 1 HE TBIN1TT. 

imply nor pre-suppose an efficient cause as does 
dependence or change or beginning. The self 
existence is self-sufficient. 

3. The Apostles' Creed. The very essence of 
this creed is the doctrine of the Trinity. This 
is made sufficiently manifest by a mere skeleton 
quotation of it. Credo: (1) "I believe in God the 
Father; (2) And in Jesus Christ, his only Son; 
(3) I believe in the Holy Ghost." The legend, 
perpetuated by the Roman Catholic Church, that 
the Apostles, before they separated, " composed this 
creed,"* lacks verification. It was never acted on 
by any council; it was the gradual outgrowth of 
the first four or five centuries. It is the most 
remarkable instance in existence of the spontaneous 
and free expression or formal crystallization 
of the Biblically enlightened Christian conscious- 
ness of the early Church. What was the faith of 
the early disciples, embodied therein, has been the 
faith of* the disciples of Christ in all subsequent 
ages. From the time of the formation of the 
Westminister Shorter Catechism, near the middle 
of the seventeenth century, this now venerable sym- 
bol has been placed alongside the so-called Apostle's 
Creed. Indeed, it may be observed, that, perhaps, 
the simplest notion we can have of the structure of 
this Catechism is that it is little other than the 
so-called Apostles' Creed, (Questions 4-38), the 
Ten Commandments, (Questions 39-81), and the 
Reformation doctrines of grace with the Lord's 
prayer (Questions 82-107), transformed into ques- 
tions and answers. What precedes the law does 
not so literally follow the creed as does some other 



ran tbinity. VM 

Catechisms, but it does so substantially. My own 
experience is, that the best way to teach the Shorter 
Catechism is, for the pupil to first memorize and 
recite exactly the Creed, the Ten Commandments 
and the Lord's Prayer; and then omit Questions 
43-81, certainly at first. This surprisingly relieves 
the case of abstractions and without loss. All the 
children of the Church, therefore, who are taught 
this Shorter Catechism and the Creed, are drilled 
in the doctrines of the Trinity. And when we say 
that this is a fundamental doctrine of Christianity, 
the meaning is, of course, that if you take away 
this doctrine, the whole superstructure of Chris- 
tianity falls — tumbles into chaos. 

4. The Great commission. This was the 
nucleus and productive germ of the Apostles ' 
Creed. 

Matthew xxviii. 19— " And Jesus came, and 
spake unto them, saying: All power is given unto 
me in heaven and in earth. Go ye therefore and 
teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of 
the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy 
Ghost.' ' 

Eev. v. — "And Jesus came to them, and spake 
unto them, saying: All authority hath been given 
unto me in heaven and on earth. Go ye therefore, 
and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing 
them into the name of the Father, and of the Son 
and of the Holy Ghost." 

The second reading of this Scripture is from 

♦See "Perry's Catechism for Catechists," endorsed by Cardi- 
nal McCloskey, of New York, 18&4, page 50. 



L38 THE TBINITY. 

the Revised Version, from which all the quotations 
in this article are taken. 

There are three variations which may be noted 
in passing ■ 

1. The old has "all power," the new "all au- 
thority" is given unto me. The original allows 
either, and each implies the other, for power with- 
out authority would have been a nullity, and au- 
thority without power would have been merely 
nominal. 

2. The old has "teach all nations," and the 
new "make disciples of all the nations." The new 
is the better, for it renders explicit what the other 
implies. 

3. The old has "baptizing them w the name," 
and the new 7 , "into the name." This is a doubl 

rovement, for what is explicit in each is im- 
plied in the other, and though both are allowable, 
yet they give occasion for explanation, the new 
being somewhat the more liable, perhaps, to be 
pressed into service of error. The administration 
of this organizing ordinance "in" the triune name 
of God means, of course, that it is administered 
by his authority, and seals by implication the sub- 
jed of it in a new relation to Him; whereas "into" 
designates the fact and intimacy of the constituted 
relation thereby symbolized, and implies the au- 
thority exercised in administering baptism. When 
the maiden is married into the name of her chosen 
husband by the authority of Church or State, 
the intimacy of the relationship thereby established, 
does not obliterate her identity or individual per- 
sonality, however important, legally and morally, 



i in: tii! ni n . 139 

may be the re-adjustment of responsibility spring- 
ing from the new relation. 

It may be sufficient to remark, that the old 
version and the new version of tin's passage, and 
in general, are substantially the same. This text, 
with its context, is familiarly known as The Great 
( 'ommission. Having proclaimed His unlimited pos- 
ssioii of all the power and authority in heaven and 
on earth, He issues not an exhortation, but a com- 
mand, to His followers to disciple and baptize all 
the nations. This great commission not only gives 
the Church authority, but imposes on her the 
solemn obligation to execute this command. This 
missionary campaign, therefore, is for the con- 
quest of the world, whatever, in the economy of 
God, that may mean. We are soldiers of the 
Church militant, and aspire to be crowned victors 
in the Church triumphant. 

The fact that the discussion of the doctrine of 
the Trinity fulminates in this Commission, which 
created the Church of Christ a militant organiza- 
tion, suggests that every Christian Church is a 
missionary body. This is eminently so recognized 
by our Church. Soon after its organization as a 
distinct denominational body, the Presbyterian 
Church in the United States courageously and con- 
scientiously entered on the work of foreign mis- 
sions. Fitly, its first concern was our "Indians 
and then China." Perhaps, it is not as articulately 
and emphatically urged as it deserves to be, that 
it is pre-eminently the doctrine of the Trinity 
which authorizes and vitalizes the work of Christian 
missions, home and foreign. The Great Commis- 



1 10 i hi; rBINITT. 

sion was historically the nucleus, out of which the 
Apostles' Creed grew into the faith and life of the 
early Church, and it has been heartily cherished 
in all subsequent ages. Our Book says: "Christ as 
a King has given to His Church officers, oracles and 
ordinances. . . . His system of doctrine, gov- 
ernment, discipline and worship . . . nothing 
to be added or taken away." (F. G. 10). His 
Church is an institution, and has a businesslike 
governmental organization. It is not only the 
right, but the duty, of missionaries, therefore, to 
organize their converts into particular churches 
for the worship of the tri-personal God, in and into 
whose name they have been baptized as soldiers of 
the cross for godly living, and the proclamation 
and disciplinary enforcement of the laws of Christ, 
by the courts of this Church. The growth of our 
Church, as of all other Christian Churches, is by 
the addition of individual converts, at home or 
abroad, to existing individual churches or the ad- 
dition of particular churches, newly organized of 
new converts. Our ministers have no warrant to 
baptize infants or adults except in actual or con- 
templated, immediate connection with a particular 
organized church of our own " faith and order.' ' 
Christianity is an organized institution, and not a 
scheme of free will, individualism or anarchy. And 
in thus organizing a particular church by our home 
pastors or foreign missionaries, as our Church con- 
stitution explicitly provides, the officiating minister 
is bound to make the following prescribed declara- 
tion as crowning the transaction: "I now pronounce 
and declare that you are constituted a church ac- 



THE TRINITY. 141 

cording to the Word of God and the faith and order 
of the Presbyterian Church in the United States: 
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of 
the Holy Ghost, Amen." (F. G.). 

At the outset it was remarked that this doc- 
trine of the Trinity is intensely practical in both 
the individual and the Church life. This pre- 
scribed formal organization of converts into chur- 
ches under their covenant vows illustrates and 
emphasizes this remark. 

Now, in conclusion, (with due deference to 
those with contrary views), allow me to call at- 
tention to (what manifestly seems to be surpris- 
ing and almost incredible) the fact that, whilst 
our Home Mission work is conducted in accordance 
with the Word of God and of our Constitution as 
to the fundamental organic oneness of our Church, 
it is worthy of inquiry whether it be otherwise 
with that of our foreign missions. 1 I will attempt, 
a brief statement of its condition. In the year 
1895, "a body politic and corporate, by the name 
of the Executive Committee of Foreign -Missions of 
the Presbyterian Church in the United States for 
the purpose of the maintenance of all missionary 
undertakings by the said Church among nations 
and countries foreign to the United States," etc., 
etc., was chartered by the State of Tennessee to 
which our General Assembly has in fact "intrusted 
the management of its foreign missionary work." 
The charter further provides that this corporation 
is "for the purpose of disseminating the religion 

1. The article on the Trinity was written in 1907 and is 
now published in connection with the article on The At-onement, 
because of their internal relationship. 



142 Tin; tiuxitt. 

of said church; to establish, maintain and con- 
duct Churches," &a, &c. "What had been a simple 
Executive Committee of the General AssemMy was 
thus transformed into a chartered corporation. 

Certainly this description of its purpose in the 
charter looks like denominational Church extension 
by the agency of this chartered substitute, but as- 
suredly it is not so in practice. To this Corporation 
all the money given by our Church for foreign mis- 
sions is turned over for its use, and this amount 
lasl year was over a quarter million dollars. A 
noticeable financial feature of its business is that, 
Incidentally, in addition to the contributions of the 
Church, it also undertakes the support of indivi- 
duals by paying them for life, as a corporate body, 
graduated rates of interest for their mone}^ to be 
used in this foreign work. Paying interest on 
money for use in Mission work: — think of it. This 
has an air of business zeal. There are, however, 
business reasons for doubting the propriety of this 
thing and for apprehending the possibility, in the 
future, of virtually Hippelizing our Church. 

But it must also be noted how this Corporation 
is doing our Church work for which it was in terms 
chartered. As to "establishing and conducting 
Churches" — "for the purpose of disseminating 
the religion of (our) said Church"— it cannot point 
to a Presbytery nor to a single organized Church in 
our connection in all the heathen world — not one. 
It reports 39 organized Churches but they are not 
in our connection. They are not our Churches. 
They are individually independent Congregations. 
There is not even an individual convert a member 



THE THIXITV. 143 

of our (lunch in all this foreign field. Over ten 
thousand communicants are reported, but not one 
of them is connected with any Church of our 
denomination or under our government and disci- 
pline, even though supported by us. And thous- 
sands of these baptized and reported communi- 
cants are not members of any organized Church 
whatever. This is an anomaly. Over four thou- 
sand baptized communicants are reported in the 
African Mission at Luebo, probably five thousand 
now, but there is no Church organization whatever 
among them, no elders, no Church Session, no 
Church Court, not even a session for authority and 
discipline; and that, after over fifteen years work 
in that field. 

This is the sad spectacle of ecclesiastical bar- 
renness presented by the Southern Presbyterian 
Church in the foreign field, in conducting its share 
of the campaign under the Great Commission, after 
nearly fifty years of labor and prayer and the ex- 
penditure of perhaps five million dollars. In ex- 
planation of this surprising state of facts, which, in 
my opinion, should at once be rectified, it must be 
considered that this Corporation is not acting on, 
but in contravention of the theory of its charter, 
that it is its business to disseminate or extend the 
Southern Presbyterian Church as an organized 
body into foreign lands. But this idea it repudiates 
and undertakes only to carry seed-corn to the 
nations and to scatter it broadcast for spontaneous 
growth and the propagation of so-called u free : 
born" Churches without any supervising govern- 
ment and discipline (or organic control) by the 



144- Tin; tktnitt. 

home Church though receiving support therefrom. 
Moreover, this corporation has been tolerating the 
baptizing of polygamists and thus introducing and 
sanctioning licentiousness among its communicants. 
Only one additional irregularity will be mentioned. 
This Corporation has had for years in its service 
under pay (and each individual is an annual ex- 
pense of about one thousand dollars), a dozen or 
more Missionaries not in connection with the 
Southern Presbyterian Church at all, and in no 
way subject to its disciplinary control. (See G. A. 
Min. 1906, p. 237). Either our Southern General 
Assembly with the endorsement of the Synod of 
Virginia, is in the attitude of having sanctioned 
these revolutionary irregularities or it is not. 

It was the surprising treatment of the subject 
of polygamy during the past few years that oc- 
casioned that scrutiny of the entire mission work 
of our Church which brought to view the extra- 
ordinary features of it in part set forth above. 

In concluding these observations on the Great 
Commission it seemed to be appropriate and im- 
portant to call attention to the wide and surprising 
departure from the doctrine of our standards, as 
above indicated, in the prosecution of our mission 
work in the foreign field, whereas our Church order 
is faithfully complied with in our home mission 
work. This new doctrine, on which this Corporation 
is acting with the approval of the General As- 
sembly, was stated editorially in one of our Church 
papers, in its issue of June 27, 1906, in the following 
words : 



THE TRINITY. L45 

"CHURCHES IN HEATHEN LANDS." 

"It should not be forgotten that the position of our Church 
from the beginning has been that in foreign lands our mission- 
aries organize free-born native Churches. There is no Southern 
Presbyterian Church anywhere outside of the United States. 
Our missionaries belong to our Church, but their converts do 
not. Some of these converts may be guilty of polygamy. Yet 
no one has the right to say that the Southern Church harbors 
polygamous members inasmuch as their converts are mem- 
bers, not of our Church, but of their own. The native Church, 
under the leadership of the missionaries, may wisely be left to 
deal with polygamy. It is a question which specially concerns 
them." 

Doubtless many were much surprised by this 
statement. Facts do not sustain the opening decla- 
ration as to "the position of our Church from 
the beginning." On the contrary, instead of re- 
nouncing our organized character in the foreign 
field at "the beginning" it was more than twenty 
years before a suggestion in that direction, occurred, 
and then irregularly. At the beginning Presbyteries 
were organized in the foreign field in different 
countries, 1871 in South America ; in 1874 in China, 
and in 1886, thirty-five years after the beginning, 
the Executive Committee reported to the General 
Assembly that it had stated in correspondence with 
"sister Churches and their missionaries that the 
prevailing view in our own Church favored the 
method of having the Presbyteries on mission 
ground composed exclusively of native Presbyters, 
the missionaries holding only advisory relations 
to the Presbytery." (Alex. Digest, pp. 49, 50, and 
100). But under the regime of the Executive Com- 
mittee as a chartered body politic and corporate, 



111! j hi; TRINITY. 

those marks of our denominational presence among 
the foreign nations have disappeared so that we 
cannot now be known there by friend or foe, by 
our fruits. Such a thing as a particular Church 
with its session and superior Church courts com- 
posed Elders on official parity is, according to my 
isl information, wholly unknown. And it is posi- 
tively known that there is tolerated polygamy 
among the African Communicants and in the 
Chinese Churches. See Index on Polygamy. 

I frankly confess that until within the recent 
past, like the great majority of our ministers and 
Church members, I presume, I was in all con- 
fiding simplicity under the impression, and, with 
others, ignorantly believed that our foreign, like 
our home mission work, was, like that of all other 
Christian denominations, Protestant and Catholic— 
a work of consistent Denominational Church Ex- 
tension. As others, I took this for granted. To 
illustrate. Just previous to my discovery of this 
condition of things, not to speak of general habitual 
contributions to the foreign work by myself and 
wife, I had specially given, in two checks, to the 
Luebo African Mission, One Hundred and Fifty 
Dollars; but had I then known what I have since 
discovered and learned, as indicated above, I 
would not have given one cent. I mention this to 
silence criticism or insinuation. I await the ref- 
ormation. 

Without any present remarks of my own. I leave my readers 
to Judge for themselves to what extent the astounding condition 
of things delineated above has been changed and bettered. 



' 



i m; ti;i nii 147 

I await the reformation of this non-denomina- 
tional theory on which this corporation is acting. 
Instead of disseminating the religion of our Church 
it is withholding it. Instead of giving the heathen 
the gospel in its best form as we conceive and be- 
lieve it, this Corporation is discrediting our de- 
nomination by substituting therefor a miscellaneous 
and non-denominational evangelism. It is not estab- 
lishing or adding Churches of our denomination as 
our Church order provides. It is sound doctrine 
that legitimates and constrains reformation. This 
is no time for discrediting the official work of the 
Holy Spirit in displacing or ignoring among the 
heathen "The House of God, which is the Church 
of the living God, the pillar and Ground of the 
Truth." 

I yield to no man in devout interest in the 
foreign mission work, but we should not to the 
discredit of the organized Church which is honored 
as the mother of every one who has God for his 
spiritual Father. It is not the present purpose to 
argue but only to make a statement of an ascer- 
tained state of fact, which cannot be truthfully 
gainsaid, and which ought to be, but is not, known 
by our people. 

The Apostle Paul who as a foreign missionary 
was directly chosen and sent forth in his mission 
work from Antioch by the Holy Spirit, promptly 
organized his converts into Churches (Acts. XIV: 
23, (Jr.), and then to the day of his death, through 
peril and hardship, he cared for them by personal 
instruction in visitations and sojourns, by letters 
and by special messengers, by enjoining discipline, 



I \B i in. Tiu.xn v. 

and by authoritatively establishing uniform order 
in all the Churches as one. He did not establish 
different kinds of Churches or Church order. Ig- 
noring Church organization with its gradation of 
Presbyterial courts in foreign lands, our mis- 
sionaries would discredit the home Church and 
also the official work of the Holy Spirit, and with- 
hold from the converts what we conceive and be- 
lieve to be the best type of the Church faith and 
order for growth and discipline which has come 
down to us and which we have fondly believed 
should be extended and transmitted by us in the 
sacred name of the Tripersonal God, the Father, 
the Son, and the Holy Spirit. 

[n all the ages those by whom the Incarnate 
Son of God has been worshipped have never fal- 
tered over the like personality and Deity of the 
Holy Spirit, or the doctrine of the Trinity. Those 
who worship Christ in his true character are 
Christians and Trinitarians, for the two expressions 
are then in strictness equivalent, and those who do 
not worship him are not Christians nor Trini- 
tarians. It is a test most simple and practical, 
and far-reaching for it applies alike to the intelli- 
gent child or to the adult. Take the child's prayer: 

1 ' Now I lay me <lcnvn to sleep, 
I pray The Lord my soul to keep: 
If I should die before I wake, 
I pray The Lord my soul to take." 

Poets have not been able to improve much less 
io supersede this prayer. But, only think of it: 
This prayer is addressed to "the Lord/' the 
Christ. Thousands at the same time and widely 



Tin; IKINU 3 . 149 

separated offer it. Omnipresence to hear, omni- 
science to understand, and omnipotence to answer 
them are all implied, and these are the attributes of 
Deity and entitle the Saviour to his worship. Other- 
wise it would be idolatry. But if it is his due, 
what must be the consequence to those who with- 
hold it? The only modification that is recognized 
as an improvement and bringing it explicitly into 
greater harmony with the doctrine of the Trinity, 
would be to introduce the personal pronoun "Thee." 
as follows; 

"Now I lay me down to sleep, 

I pray Thee, Lord, my soul to keep; 

If I should die before I wake, 

I pray Thee, Lord, my soul to take." 

These things being so, it need hardly be said 
that the doctrine of the Trinity is fundamental, and 
taking as it does this practical shape in the wor- 
ship of the Lord Jesus Christ, no doctrine is more 
simple, intelligible, and precious to the child or to 
the wayfarer. The worship of Christ led to the 
articulate formulation of the doctrine of the Trini- 
ty during the first seven centuries. (681 G. C.) It 
abides and will ever abide. 

Brethren : Our people hunger for this doctrine. 
What a mistake it is for preachers to avoid it 
under the impression that it is mysterious and 
unpractical. Certainly no doctrine of the Word of 
God is more simple and practical, both in the 
individual and Church life. The question of wor- 
shipping the Christ carries the whole case. 

"The peace of God, which passeth all under- 



L50 CHE TRINITY. 

standing, keep your hearts and minds through 
us Christ our Lord: and may the blessing of 
God Almighty, the Father, the Son, and the Holy 
(J host abide with you, evermore. Amen." 

Samuel Spahr Laws. 
Washington, D. C, 
January 10, 1907. 



MISCELLANEOUS SEARCHLIGHT SUG- 
GESTIONS FOR THE WEARY READER. 

I. A. 

Adam— Pp. 16, 29. 

Armistice — P. 104. 
Athens— P. 81. 

Azazel (scape-goat) — P. 59. 

Atonement — 

The word Atonement was formerly written At-onement and 
this orthography explains the real meaning in which the word 
Atonement is used in this book, although it is not felt to be 
necessary to follow the distinction closely. In a word the des- 
ignation Atonement, as here considered, contemplates the Gospel 
reconciliation of the human race to God. 

Adam is the first character of the discourse and is, with 
Eve, the only representative we have in the Bible of the primi- 
tive form of religion ordained by God for man, and the seventh 
day was made the sacred day of this primitive religion. It was 
from this that Adam and Eve fell in Eden. 

II. B. 

Blood of Christ— Pp. 41, 49, 50. 

Birth — in two notable instances the birth of Cain, Pp. 70, 101, 
and the birth of the Savior, P. 22. Cain, as representing the 
fallen condition of man and Christ as the Savior, a perfect con- 
trast of characters. The notice of the birth of Cain (Gen. 4-1) 
contains four words, "by the help of," for which there is no 
authority in the original text and the thought that is attributed 
to Eve is entirely different from what is authorized. Her lan- 
guage is "I have given birth to a man(ish) Jehovah. " The par- 
ticle "eth" in the text is not a preposition but an index finger 
in its general usage pointing out the object of the verb and this 
is the 3.3rd instance of its use in the text. In every instance 
that general usage is observed, but in this verse it is made an 
unwarranted exception as a preposition. Eve's mistake in no 
manner affects God's word and the word Jehovah as here given 
should be viewed in comparison with Luke 2-11. Where the 
same Jehovah is represented by the angel as the incarnate 
Savior, the word "kurios" in the Greek, being used in the Septu- 
agent as equivalent to Adhonai, Hebrew (Ps. 110.) and thus we 
have the word "Lord" used 1000 times in the New Testament as 
a translation of "kurios," whereas, according to this suggestion 



(151) 



152 THE ATONKMKXT. 



it should be Jehovah Jesus instead of Lord Jesus, so that 
Thomas' confession in John 20 would be "My Jehovah and my 
God" and not "My Lord and my God." In every instance the 
use of the word Jehovah according to this criticism would be 
an explicit verbal assertion of his Deity. "Ye must be born 
again." John. 3. 

Bondage— Pp. 68, 69. 

III. C. 

Covenant — Pp. 7, 171. 

Before the fall, God's covenant was with man Himself and 
is spoken of in the book as the Covenant of Works. Man stood 
on his personal obedience with God. After the Fall the Covenant 
is a new Covenant of Grace with Christ. P. 18. The obedience 
of Christ is a realization accepted as justifying righteousness, 
whereas the obedience of man even in Eden was a failure and has 
been a failure ever since. See Gal. 2-16. 

Cain— Pp. 70, 101. 

Channing Dr.— Pp. 133, 134. 

Cntcifision— Pp. 38, 39, 41. 

IV. D. 

Death (P. 33)— Gen. 2-17. 

The death here pronounced is to be supremely viewed as 
the death of Christ on the cross (P. 39) simply and plainly with- 
out speculation or alteration. In the case of man, generally it 
has two senses, the separation of the body from the soul and 
second the extinguishment of the holy sensibilities of his na- 
ture, commonly spoken of as spiritual death. The death pro- 
nounced in sinning was a Hebrew idiom emphasized idomati- 
cally, "By dying thou shalt die." This death thus pronounced 
was the penalty of the broken law, and the bearing of it by 
Christ and his obedience to the minutest requirements of the 
law, constitute his legal satisfaction, and is commonly, though 
mistakenly regarded as exclusively the atonement. Throughout 
the Bible, therefore, blood is used as the symbol of death, a 
circumstance to be especially noted. 

DummeJow — Pp. 63, 81. 

V. E. 

Eve— P. 19. 

By her own confession she was deceived into disobedience 
by the plausible behavior of an archangel, commonly designated 
Satan, but in Rev. 12-9, he has three other names given him: 
the Devil, the Dragon and the Old Serpent. Let it be noted that 
the Old Serpent thus named is none other than the archangel 



THE ATONEMENT. L53 

Satan who deceived Eve by his blasphemous lying and plausi 
ble use of ventriloquism that made it appear to her that the Ser- 
pent was invested with human sense and speech and that these 
special gifts had resulted from eating the forbidden fruit, so 
that instead of her dying, as God had told her, the fruit would 
give her a new life as it were, thus charging God with lying to 
Eve, whereas it was the Old Serpent himself that was doing the 
lying. P. 41. It is remarkable that ventriloquism has not been 
suggested, so far as known, as the special agency used by Satan 
in his deception of Eve. Adam sinned deliberately without be- 
ing deceived as stated. P. 29. The fact of Eve, acting apart 
from her husband and without his knowledge or advice is cer- 
tainly a subject for serious reflection in the light of the conse- 
quences in this day of asserted freedom. 

Expiation — P. 84. 

VI. P. 

Faith. 

(1) — Page 55 shows distinctly that the righteousness of 
Jesus Christ that justifies and saves is not His moral character, 
but specifically the satisfaction of obedience which he rendered 
to the precept and penalty of the broken law. This service, or 
work of satisfaction, had the effect of meritoriously delivering 
Christ himself from under the curse and penalty of the broken 
law and this deliverance of himself was his egoistical redemption 
and salvation whereas his salvation of all others is altruistic, 
through imputation of his righteousness and the consequent ac- 
tivity of the Holy Spirit. This number also suggests the name 
of Prof. Fowler whose work on the religion of Rome has been 
freely appropriated from and remarked on. P. 75. 

Fillioque—P. 91. 

VII. G. 

Goats (The)— P. 52. 

The procedure of salvation is dual. The part effected by 
the Logos centers in the bloody cross — the part effected by the 
Holy Spirit is bloodless and this distinction should be borne in 
mind especially by sensitive readers. 

God— P. 31. 

This is one of the most indefinite words in human language. 
It would seem that almost the only language that has a true and 
definite name for the true God is the Hebrew Jehovah, fragments 
of which are formed in countless combinations of names. 

Germany— P. 109, 110. 

Golden Age— P. 93. 



154 n\E ATONEMENT. 



VIII. H 



Holy of Holies— F. 59. 

This locality was the innermost department of the taber- 
nacle and also of the temple of the Jewish Church. It was a 
cube, 10 ft. every way, containing the arc of the covenant with 
its contents; the stone tables of the law; the pot containing 
the manna; the rod of Aaron that budded; the golden cover, 
thereof, was the mercy seat on which the blood of atonement 
was sprinkled by the officiating priest, together with the over- 
shadowing Cherubim. The tradition seems to have been that a 
sensible image in human form hovered over the mercy seat. 
There is a mistake afloat that this holy place was entered only 
once in a year — the simple truth it was during one day in a 
year, and then several times, but only by the high priest. Lev. 
16 is the classic passage of the Old Testament. 

Hell— P. 33. 

IX. I. 

Imputation— Pp. 26, 57, 58. 

This word, as a matter of fact represents one of the most 
important transactions in the whole procedure of Gospel sal- 
vation. This does not imply infusion either of sin or of holi- 
ness. It does not impart character, but status. For example: 
A criminal pardoned by the imputation or the credit of the 
judge's sentence is not changed in character in the slightest but 
is changed in his relation to the law — the judge's sentence 
changes his status — but not his character. The imputation of 
righteousness to the sinner does not of itself effect his personal 
character, but it does effect his status relative to the divine 
law. The imputation of the responsibility of sin to Christ did 
not in the slightest effect his moral character but did pro- 
foundly affect his relation to the broken law. Imputation, there- 
fore, is to be sharply distinguished from infusion. One of the 
most emphatic and explicit discussions of imputation is found 
in the work of Horace Bushnell "The Vicarious Sacrifice," Vol. 
II. with this decided qualification that he bears and confuses 
the case by the false notion of infusion. Eliminate infusion 
from his discourse and it is admirable. We have from him, 
"In this most sublimely practical of all truths, imputed righteous- 
ness Christianity culminates" — also "Thus, instead of having our 
faith Imputed unto us for righteousness, we ourselves teach our 
faith to locate all our righteousness putatively in God; saying, 
'The Lord our righteousness,' 'Christ who is our life.' ". 

The doctrine of imputation is impracticable in human gov- 
ernment, but perfectly valid in the Divine government of Om- 
niscience and Omnipotence. 

Independence (Declaration of) — P. 111. 



THE ATONEMENT, L55 



X. J. 

Jehovah, the proper name for God and used exclusively of 
Him. Pp. 30, 31, 98, 102. 

Justification of Jesus Christ — Pp. 61, 62. 

XL K. 
Kingship of Christ— Pp. 132, 140. 

His confession of his kingship to Pilate but his broad affir- 
mation that it was not a worldly kingship or he would call his 
angelic troops to his service. It was his glorious spiritual king- 
ship that the world has never yet fully appreciated. 

XII. L. 

Law (The)— Pp. 17, 18, 23, 95. 
Lore— Pp. 18, 95, 97. 

XIII. M. 

Mary and Maternity — P. 22. 

Mary had five sons and two daughters. The names of the 
sons are given distinctly and the word "daughter" is in the 
plural, implying at least two daughters. It was no doubt that, 
the marriage of one of these daughters at Cana of Galilee was at- 
tended by her maternal brother, the Savior, on his return from 
the forty days temptation and over which Mary herself presided 
with such dignified and maternal care. In Matth. 13-55 and 56 and 
Mark 6-3, we have a description of a village family consisting 
of five sons, called brothers, and two daughters, whose names 
are not given. These children are never spoken of as the chil- 
dren of any other than Mary. As perfectly confirmatory of 
Mary's maternity of the entire family of seven children, the 
circumstance of the attendance on the Passover festival gives 
manifest proof. Jesus was then twelve years of age, which 
means Joseph and Mary had been wedded thirteen years and the 
circumstance of seven children being in the family after 13 
years of wedded life is one of the common experiences of life. 
Particularly notice the circumstance that Joseph was not only 
alive but that he was with and in charge of his family at this 
Festival and that Mary on finding Jesus after a search of three 
days uses the following tender language: "Son why hast thou 
thus dealt with us? behold thy father and I sought thee sor- 
rowing," language plainly implying Joseph as the caretaking 
head of the family. The whole conjecture of Jerome in regard 
to Mary as having given birth only to Christ is founded upon 
the wicked slander that virginity is more virtuous than mater- 
nity. Without going into further detail the scriptural evidence 



156 THE ATONEMENT. 

of Mary's maternity of these seven children is convincing and 
without reasonable question. Mary was a strong and remark- 
ably vigorous woman who attended in the crowds of the field 
preaching of her son and must have been fully fifty years of age 
when she was present in the midst of the lawless mob that 
crucified her son. 

Mohammedan. — P. 121* 

Morals (Roman)— Pp. 78, 85. 

Mediation — Pp, 56, 61. 

XIV. N. 

Xoah. 

His position is a peculiar and unique one in Bible history, 
The first administration touching the interest of the human 
family was that of the Garden of Eden, over the sole subject 
of the obedience of Adam and Eve. T'he second administration, 
but the first of the fall, took place after the lapse and termi- 
nated with Noah's family, which was a marvelous exhibition 
of the sinful character of fallen man that tried even the patience 
of Jehovah as though he had repented the creation of man, 
affirming that his spirit could not always endure such behavior 
and that the ungodly course of events should be brought to 
a termination and hence the marvelous and mysterious event 
of our world, the flood. The relation of the family and 
descendants of Noah as recognized by our ablest historians 
to the general history of the world is thoroughly entitled to 
serious recognition and this condition was wound up in the 
covenant, Gen. 9-9, 10, 11, 12. The human race then started 
upon a new career which it is hard to believe as reviewed by 
Paul in Romans 2, was any better than the career that termi- 
nated in Noah. The simple fact is we must in all humility 
and truthfulness admit that the history of our race does not 
yield adequate glory to the true God, but rather to the God 
of this world, II Corinthians, 4-4. 



XV. o. 

XVI. P. 

Paternity of Christ.— -Pp. 22, 44. 

The accounts of the birth of our Savior in Matth. I and Luke 
I. leave no leeway whatever of a rational conjecture of a human 
paternity of the incarnate babe. The discourse of Paul at 
Athens appeals to the literature of Pantheism as furnishing 
a natural presumption of the divine origin of man and in the 
book is given a skillful theistic transformation of this allusion 
of his.-— P. 79. 

Putative Sinner— Pp. 23, 26, 51, 57, 58, 60. 61, 41. 



THE ATONEMENT. 157 

Paraclete— Pp, 40, 79. 
Pharaoh— Pp. 39, 42. 
Pilate— Pp. 46. 35. 
Priest— Pp. 56, 58, 60. 
Protevangelium — P. 19. 
Plato— P. 78. 
Paul— P. 83. 
Polygamy — P. 144. 

Here is a letter from Dr. Egbert W. Smith, executive secre- 
tary of Foreign Missions, of the Presbyterian Church in the 
U. S., which says in answer to my inquiry in regard to the 
relations of the church to polygamy, "I am glad to answer 
that so far as I know there are not any polygamists in any 
of our Southern Presbyterian churches in any part of the world." 
It gives me a pleasure that language is scarcely able to ex- 
press, to publish this announcement. I had informed Dr. Smith 
that I expected to make public use of his answer, so that this 
is not a private communication, but a public declaration which 
he is in every way competent to make. When this article on 
the Trinity was written some twelve years ago, there were 
polygamists in our churches in both Africa and China and a 
controversy had been entertained respecting it for eight or 
ten years, but now, thank God, we have the positive evidence 
that this is a dead issue in our church and the use made of 
unheard of free born churches has collapsed, although the 
originators of this worldly and ambitious scheme of financing 
and enrolling polygamous members of the mission churches 
have gone free and have escaped the richly deserved chastise- 
ment of ecclesiastical treason. During the past year, Dr. Smith 
spent eight months in a visit to our churches in China, and at 
Montreat. I heard him give an account of this sojourn in 
their midst, so that he is thoroughly imformed in regard to 
the condition of our foreign missions. It may be well to state 
explicitly that polygamy is chiefly a system of cruel slavery, 
perhaps now the most cruel system of bondage on the face 
of the earth. In the communications we used to receive from 
Africa, a sketch was given of a petit chief of the country who 
had no less than three thousand in his harem and in conversa- 
tion with a recently furloughed missionary from Africa, whose 
address I heard in Asheville, N. C, he distinctly informed me 
that in an effort made recently in Africa to induce the native 
churches to provide for self support it was ascertained to his 
surprise, that the only inducement that would lead them to 
exercise economy was the prospect of buying another wife, 
which shows the tyrannous influence of this baneful custom. 
These women that constitute the harem of these petit lords, 
are nominally wives, but in fact, they are slaves owned, bought 



158 TIIF. ATONEMENT. 

aud sold and they exercise the discretion of life and deatli as 
absolutely as the ancient Romans who would sometimes slaughter 
some of their slaves as an entertainment at a festival, or to 
distinguish some occasion in the enjoyment of absolute im- 
munity. This cruel treatment is a common characteristic of 
polygamy the world over. With this marked variation, however, 
that in addition to laborious and profitable servitude, their own- 
ers enjoy the privilege of using politically the influence of the 
families with which these women are connected. It is a mis- 
take, therefore, entertained by the public that polygamy is simply 
the result of lust, but over and above lust in its vile influences, it 
is the result of selfish greed and ambition and the gratification of 
petty savage tyrants, and that the church of Christ should vir- 
tually become the nursing mother of such a dreadful and calami- 
tous custom of the heathen world is such a horrible reflection as 
a means of preventing its possible revival by the indecency of 
the slightest church favor, this article on the Trinity is a word 
in season, for it calls attention to the important fact that the 
last act of our Savior in His sojourn on earth before His 
ascension, he instituted and ordained the mission work of the 
church by his explicit command, "Go ye therefore, and make 
disciples of all the nations, baptizing them into the name of 
the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost." 

We see, therefore, that in this Great Commission he as- 
sociated the Father and The Holy Spirit with Himself in the 
realization of this peace treaty dictated to man, so that the work 
of the church is explicitly ordained by Him as the work to be 
accomplished in co-operation with the Trinity. 

The purpose of this article on The Trinity was originally in- 
tended to set forth the work of the church in the execution 
of this great commission in the name of The Holy Trinity, so 
that any man as a minister of the church of Christ and facing 
the procedure of admitting a polygamist to this spiritual com- 
munion of this Holy Trinity, would experience an inevitable 
paralysis of ability to consummate the procedure by befouling 
it with the filth and lustful iniquity of this degrading institution 
that Satan himself has foisted upon the human race. 

It may be remarked in passing that whilst the most con- 
spicuous polygamist in the United States is tolerated in the 
chief council of the nation on account of the ethnic weakness 
of our free government, yet the Emperor of ancient Rome found 
such a difference as effecting the policies of the Empire in the 
citizens who were the legitimate offsprings of wedded life, actu- 
ally decreed and awarded prizes for all legitimately born children; 
hence the value of this reminder of the true nature of the mission 
w T ork of the church in realizing the At-onement of the Gospel 
treaty of Peace, by this quiet witnessing of this true nature of 
the work. 

There may be no impropriety in my stating, perhaps, that 
whether mv own influence in this controversy has contributed in 



THE ATONEMENT. L59 

the least to bring about this happy result, I know not, but I 
am equally gratified at learning that such is the present situation 
I wish to remark, finally and once for all that the closing pari 
of the article on The Trinity is an absolutely truthful sum- 
mary and defense of the condition of the church and of its mis- 
sion work at that time. 

To interpret our Mission Work, whether Foreign or Domestic, 
as conducted on a lower scale than that of the co-operation of 
the persons of The Trinity is to misread the situation and to 
manifest a blindness to the teachings of the Word of God, and a 
lack of conscientious spiritual insight and discernment. 

XVIII. R. 

Rightcous?icss. 

It has already been emphasized that the righteousness of 
Christ which is the specific object of saving faith is his satis- 
faction of the claims of the broken law and nothing else, a point 
to be considered as virtually settled by this allusion, speculations 
in regard to which have filled whole volumes. Regeneration, or 
the new birth, is the greatest event in the life of a sinful mortal. 

XIX. s. 

Sanctification — Pp. 62, 64. 

Sin— Pp. 16, 55. 

Sabbath— P. 99. 

Satan— Pp. 19-47, 48, 106. 

As to sin the narrative of the books of the Events of Eden de- 
fines its nature better than the schoolman and even better than 
the catechism. Satan has already been spoken of as an archangel. 
He has organized through his fallen followers a dreadful, hostile 
army, scheming and laboring continually and yet strange to say 
it is after this god of the world that the human race is con- 
tinually striving to please with an insane infatuation. The 
scriptures give surprising intimations of the multitude of demons 
subordinate to Satan, the god of this world, which amounts to 
saying truthfully that there is something wrong with the human 
race, and makes it believable as stated in the scriptures that 
Satan and his followers were expelled from heaven, and found 
a lodgment here on earth. 

Salvation from the power of this invasive force should be 
the aspiration of all men. Salvation is sharply to be distinguished 
from Redemption. A number of Americans might be in the 
bondage of some foreign captivity and the government might 
make ample provision for the removal of their shackles, but 
until they had been personally restored to their native country, 
they would not be saved. Salvation means properly the actual 
possession of the blessings provided for by redemption, redemp- 



160 THE ATONEMENT. 

tion provided for by deliverance from sin and Christ as the great 
Redeemer. Salvation implies the personal realization of that de- 
liverance which is the work of the Holy Spirit. On reflection, 
at times, it seems to be a more stupendous undertaking than the 
Redemption, more trying to patience and all the Christian graces, 
for Redemption may be accomplished as a feat, but Salvation 
takes time and perseverance — even centuries. 

stoicism— P. 80. 

Stalker— P. 73. 

XX. T. 

Tarsus— Pp. 79, 83. 
Temptation, 

Treaty of Peace— Pp. 11, 104. 
TertuUian. — P. 36. 

Trinity — There seems to be good reason for saying, as is 
sometimes done, that the doctrine of At-onement, or reconcilia- 
tion of sinner to God and God to the sinner, more completely 
places under recquisition the activities of the several persons of 
the Trinity than does the realization of any other doctrine or 
blessing of the Gospel. We have the initiative of the Father and 
as carefully explained in the book the work of the Logos and 
the work of the Holy Spirit as radically distinct and both as 
necessary to the realization of personal salvation. Hence it is 
by virtue of this intimate relationship the discourse on the 
Trinity is placed in intimate relationship to the discourse on 
The At-onement. The Father is placed before us in Scripture 
as reconciled and awaiting the reconciliation of his creatures. 
There is no scripture calling for the reconciliation of God, as 
having not alreadv been accomplished by Christ's propitiation. 
John. 3:14-16. 

In a word the redemption purchased by Christ is not ab- 
solute, but conditional to man, "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, 
and thou shalt be saved" and there is no other condition stated 
or known. The Father is passively reconciled, but actively 
projects salvation. 

XXI u. 

Unitarian {Channina) — P. 133. Substitutes Natural Religion 
for Christianity. 

XXII V. 

Ventriloquism of Hatan — Pp. 19, 48. 

Virgin birth of the Savior. Our scientists have assured us 
that virgin birth would not compromise the perfection of human- 
ity. Pp. 22, 24. 



THE ATONEMENT. L61 

Vicarious Suffering — P. 26. 

XXIII. w. 

War— P. 108. 

The first war of which we have any knowledge was in Heaven 
P. 110. The worst war we know of personally, still shadows 
our experience. Pp. 107, 108. The origin of war is given by 
the Bible, Jas. 4-1. That God Himself engages in war, is ex- 
plained by the fact that war is sinful and the only way to sup- 
press the sin is by countervailing war. Hence the Scriptures 
represent God as making such extensive use of war and hence 
also Christians are in the path of duty when they war for the 
suppression or punishment of outrageous wrong-doing. 

XXIV. X. 

XXV. Y. 

XXVI. Z. 

Zeus — poem — a perversion of the truth. P. 80. 



SUPPLEMENTARY 

As I was taking leave of this book, I had occa- 
sion to look into the reserved Appendix. But Lo! 
the copy I supposed was still under my hand, 
could not be found. And considering the un- 
usual changes that have occurred in the past few 
months and years and have affected no little my 
personal experience and surroundings, I feel myself 
shocked by the apprehension that the appendices, 
of which I had three literal copies of 175 pages 
each, typewritten, are irrevocably lost. This may not 
make much difference to the hasty reader, but to 
the scholarly and critical reader, perhaps one-half 
the interest and value of the work is gone. To my- 
self, I can but regard it a serious misfortune. In 
writing, I usually turned over to this Appendix, ex- 
planations of important amplifications and criti- 
cisms and conserved treasures of valued material. 
In view of this mishap, as the book cannot be de- 
layed, I shall now T prepare hastily a brief chapter 
relative to the Book as it now goes forth. I 
had regarded this Book in its entirety, as the most 
important product of my industrious life. 

The fundamental and pervasive idea of the 
work is religious, and there is, at our command, a 
very simple and valid definition of religion in gem 
oral. Our religion springs immediately out of our 
personal relations to our God and every phase of 
religion has its God, hence there are gods many in 
the world, but "only one Father in Heaven," as 
Paul expresses it in 1 Corin. 8th, 5th and 6th verses. 

(162) 



SUPPLrEMENTABT. 163 

"For though there be that are called gods, whether 
in heaven or on earth; as there are gods many and 
lords many; yet to us there is one God, the Father, 
of whom are all things and we unto him and one 
Lord Jesus Christ through whom are all things, 
and we through him." 

There are as many false gods as there are 
multitudinous false religions in the world. His- 
torically, there is no religion without its gods and 
in some countries the gods have outnumbered the 
population. There are only two phases or forms of 
true religion known to man, the primitive religion 
of angels and man in Eden, and the Christian re- 
ligion established by Christ for the recovery of 
man's sinful departure from that primitive relig- 
ion. 

This fall of man was not a spontaneous prompt- 
ing or experience of our innocent and sinless first 
parents, for it would be unintelligible to us that 
perfectly holy parents should have sinful children 
born to them. It may be somewhat a matter of 
curiosity, but it is worth while to inquire how long 
our first parents dwelt in Eden in a sinless state 
before the Fall and expulsion, but the birth of 
Cain, who was manifestly a bad man, seems to- 
illustrate and be explicable by the significance of 
subsequent Scripture. Ps. 51-5. "And in sin did my 
mother conceive me," and in Ephesians 2-3, "and 
were by nature (pheusi) children of wrath even as 
the rest," which seems to be the universal rule of 
human progenity from which we are hardly at liber- 
ty to regard Cain an exception. This single circum- 



164 SUPPLEMENTARY. 

stance determines the opinion that the continuance 
of our first parents in this primitive and divinely 
instituted state of religion, from which they fell, 
was of short duration but, nevertheless, none the 
Less real and important. And this primitive re- 
ligion did not lose its claim on the service of man 
by the Pall, but has now as valid and unqualified a 
claim to obedience as it had in that brief primitive 
experience of man. Disobedience never relaxes the 
claim of the law disobeyed but increases its claims. 
It is only when the present man departs from the 
precept of religion and incurs its penalty that his 
attention is claimed imperiously by the religion of 
Christ, as a redemptive, remedial religion, for 
Christianity is not the form of primitive religion of 
man, which was equally a relation from God as 
Christianity. Let it be distinctly observed we have 
only two modes of revealing or making known our- 
selves to other intelligences and those two modes 
are action and language, and the same limita- 
tion holds true of God. He first revealed or 
manifested his existence and character by the 
actions of creation and Providence, and subse- 
quently by language in the Bible. We are ac- 
customed to designate it a Primitive Religion be- 
cause it was the interpretation of man's relations 
to his God from the dim light of Nature. This moon- 
light of Nature's interpretation was as really 
genuine and divine as the sunlight of Christianity; 
SO that an ordinary distinction that is suggested as 
between natural and revealed religion, is an utter- 
ly misleading mistake and deserves to be rectified 



PPLEMENTAR1 . 165 

by those that have fallen into it; and hence we see 
the imperious duty of the explanation of Primitive 
Eeligion as founded on the light of Nature as now 
should be set forth in the luminous and astounding 
knowledge we have in these modern days of the 
natural sciences. 

In truth it may be stated without disparage- 
ment that Paley's so called "Natural Religion" is 
but a story book, published in 1802, more than a 
century ago in which all scientific appeal is dis- 
claimed, and hence the duty of superceding this 
imperfect, tho' wonderfully useful interpretation 
as helpful to the expounder of the superceding 
Christian religion. Rut to return from this digres- 
sion, it would seem that immediately on the occur- 
rence of this fall from the Primitive Religion, the 
revelation in Gen. 3-15 of a Redeemer was given 
in regard to which a lamentable mistake has been 
made in perverting the utterance of Eve in the 
four unauthorized words pointed out in the rectifi- 
cation of the text. And this great promise to Eve, 
which is the so called Protevangelium, is in fact the 
Gospel in epitome. But it is to be especially noted 
that the adverse and hostile influence that brought 
about the fall of our first parents promptly took its 
initiative at that time in a most amazing manner, 
for it discloses to us the astonishing information 
that a previous order of moral agents had been 
created and flourished indefinitely and had finally 
fallen into a state of disobedience through the 
leadership of Satan, perhaps the most marvellously 
gifted archangel in Heaven. This Satan with his 
followers, the armv of God, commanded bv Michael, 



L66 -rppLEMENTAKY. 

was cast out of Heaven and clown to earth as a 
dumping ground probably before the human race 
was created, whose malignant and successful temp- 
tation was soon undertaken by this same Satan af- 
ter man's creation and lamentably is to be perpetu- 
ated until the affairs of the human race are wound 
up in the final judgment and establishment of the 
empire of peace bo marvelously forecast by Isaiah. 
It is this very Satan who is figuratively named as 
k 'The Old Serpent, " Rev. 12-9, who by his marvelous 
trickery and lying eloquence so irresistably misled 
Eve (Gen. 34) as she, herself, confessed. It was this 
occurrence of sin in Heaven prior to the occurrence 
of sin on earth that occasioned the organization 
of the first warring army in the history of our uni- 
verse, for God Himself initiated warfare, prompt- 
ed by the horrors of sin, as the means of suppres- 
sing it, and that has been ever since its legitimate 
providential function, however little soldiers them- 
selves may have realized it. Yet the history of 
the world shows that largely, the changes in 
God's favoring progress of this race have been 
brought about by the remedial horrors of war. At- 
tention has been called to the prompt step taken by 
God to inform man of a scheme of redemption from 
sin, but it is to be noted that one of the marvels of 
scripture is that no reliable intimation whatever is 
given of a divine provision for the salvation of fal- 
len angels but only for the human race. 

The term angel is no longer used in Scripture 
as the name of those who had fallen, but only for 
the loyal angels, and the w r ord "demon" is the 



BUPHLffiMBNTARY. 167 

present Scriptural designation of the fallen an- 
gels that have become the followers of Satan. 
There is but one Satan or Devil and the language 
of the New Testament is strictly observant of this 
fact. The word Diabolis, the canonical word for 
Devil or Satan, is used but once in the New Testa- 
ment in the singular and then as designating any 
other than the individual Devil and that is in John 
6-70, "Did not I choose you the twelve and one 
of you is a devil?" speaking of Judas. The 
word is used in the plural only three times in the 
New Testament, twice relating to unscrupulous, 
gossiping women, and the third time relating to 
men in the same sense. The word devil is used in 
the old version for demon, an error which the 
new version corrects. 

But in regard to the salvation of angels the 
new version modifies Hebrews 2-16 in a surpris- 
ing manner in the translation of an equivocal word, 
so as to explicitly exclude angels from the salvation 
provided by Christ under the equivocal expression 
of il lending a helping hand." 

This is perhaps the most surprising change 
made by the revisers and when prudently accepted 
and viewed in relation to the institution of war by 
God to resist and punish sin, opens up to us the 
horror with which God views sin and the appalling 
significance of Hebrews 10-31. "It is a fearful 
thing to fall into the hands of the living God." 

As the differentiation of revelation of man or 
God depends on the difference of action and lan- 
guage, it may be well worth while to note that the 
action precedes language, as in the case of a child ; 



L68 SUFPIiBMENTABY. 

and hence the natural revelation preceded the 
Bible, but both are equally revelative of God. 

The last point which it is proposed to make in 
this supplementary Chapter is the distinctive co- 
operation of the persons of the Trinity in the 
realization of the great scheme of the At-onement 
of the Gospel. In brief, this entire head of the 
Chapter relative to the Trinity is reducable to 
three distinct points articulately and distinctly 
taught in Scripture. 

1st. The Father assumes the initiative. 

2nd. The Son is allotted the judicial execution 
of the scheme. 

3rd. The Holy Spirit is alloted by the Father 
the spiritual realization of the scheme in a state of 
final glory. The Father's attitude is that of origi- 
nation and initiative, hence the explanation already 
given of the resourcefulness of Love triumphing over 
the weakness of self rectification bv violated law. 
Hence, also, the peculiar significance of John's 
initiative in Ch. 3-14-19, "And as Moses lifted up 
the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son 
of man be lifted up; that whosoever believeth may 
in him have eternal life. For God so loved the 
world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that 
whosoever believeth on him, should not perish but 
have eternal life." Now, for brevity sake, allow 
me simply to allude to the explicit and repetitious 
enunciations that the Son and the Spirit are sent 
of the Father, which circumstance is emphasized 
in the case of the Son by the audible recognition of 
the Father of his paternity at the baptism in 
Jordan, and also on the Mount of Transfiguration. 



SUPFLBMENTABY. 169 

II. In Peter's 2nd discourse delivered on the 

occasion of the healing of the cripple at the beauti- 
ful gate shortly after the Crucifixion he uses this 
wonderful language in regard to the Son, in answer 
to the demand of the crowd and authorities. As to 
the healing of this man— now 40 years of age and a 
cripple from birth, he uses the following language : 
"Be it known unto you all and to all the people 
of Israel, that in the name of Jesus Christ of 
Nazareth whom ye crucified, whom God raised from 
the dead, even in him doth this man stand here 
before you whole. He is the stone which was set 
at nought of you builders, which was made the 
head of the corner. And in none other is there 
salvation: for neither is there any other name un- 
der heaven, that is given among men, wherein 
we must be saved." By this miracle the Son fully 
attested his Deitv and if we turn over to the 2nd 
Ch. of Phillippians 6th, the striking significance of 
this passage is that Christ in His pre-existent state 
claims an "equality with the Father" and hence he 
experienced no temptation to lay claim to what did 
not belong to him, as he already possessed this 
equality and was absolutely contented therewith. 
Milton, with great address in his wonderful poem, 
Paradise Lost, represents Satan in his original 
state as so exalted in his character as to notice 
that there was but a step between him and the 
throne and in enviously meditating on this step 
of inferiority, his ambitious jealousy prompted him 
to make the effort to gain that supreme position. 
Then as concluding, "I made the effort and here I 
am lost and undone." 



170 BUPPLBMBNTABY, 

Milton's "Paradise Lost" is one of the success- 
ful wonders of literature. His "Paradise Re- 
gained" is a failure, and some explain it on the 
Unitarian theory, which is quite unequal to the 
recovery of man. 

As the Son of God we thus have Christ on his 
mission from the Father to earth so repetitiously 
emphasized by him that the Scriptu're gives his true 
exaltation as Deity and equal with the Father. 

At the Nicene Council the question was pro- 
pounded whether Christ existed at the will of the 
Father and the answer was emphatically and 
promptly given in the negative. The simple truth 
is the persons of the Deit}^ are the primary and 
necessary constituents of the one God revealed to 
us in the Bible, and in their constitutional oneness, 
beyond the control of will, they co-exist and co- 
operate as the one living and our true God of the 
Bible, unknown to Nature, but the fundamental 
truth of our Canonical Scriptures. However, there 
is a surprising aspect of this mission of the Son 
relative to his uncarnation in human nature that 
may be noticeable in this book whose interpretation 
of the Scripture sinks the plummet of Divine Truth 
to a lower level of humiliation than is to be found 
in the familiar literature of the subject. He trod 
this lower level on earth as a putative sinner who 
was born, lived and died under the broken law; 
as a condemned sinner who w r as redeemed by the 
righteousness wrought out by him in perfectly 
satisfying the precept of the law, and truthfully 
enduring the penalty as pronounced in Gen 2-17, 
on the eating of the forbidden fruit, and so bias- 



SUPPLEMENTARY. 1 7 I 

pheiiiously and deceptively belied by Satan in his 
temptation of Eve. 

This still lower depth of humiliation, so plainly 
unfolded in the new reading of the Script hit, 
brought him that much closer to the condition of 
fallen humanity and the supreme competence of 
acting as its Savior. 

The righteousness which redeemed ( !hrist egois- 
tically from under the curse and condemnation of 
the Law is with sufficient clearness set forth in 
the text of the Book, and was wrought out by him 
here on earth and was not brought by Him from 
Heaven to earth as a distinctive, redemptive treas- 
ure, consisting of the complete observance of the 
precept of the Law and the endurance of its true 
penalty. This same righteousness that redeemed 
Christ Himself from under the broken Law and 
triumphantly rescued Him from its condemnation 
is here presented as identically the same imputed 
righteousness that altruistically saves every per- 
sonal sinner; for the Holy Spirit looks upon the 
imputed righteousness as the standard to which 
the personal character is by his efficient spiritual 
agency to be conformed; wereas in the case of 
Christ himself the imputed righteousness finds it- 
self alread}^ conformed to in the character of 
the Savior without any service on the part of the 
Spirit. This is the secret process of spiritual adop- 
tion and the glory of sanctification. Just one word 
in regard to the triumph of this really extreme 
humiliation which we find so admirably expressed 
in Phil. 2-7-11. " Wherefore also Grod highly ex- 
alted him and gave unto him the name which is 



172 BUPPLBMBNTABT. 

above every name, thai in the name of Jesus every 

knee should bow, of tilings in Heaven and things 
on earth and things under the earth and that every 
tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, 
to the gl»ry of God the Father." 

3rd. We come now to the consideration of the 
Holy Spirit, as the third person of this combination 
as agreed on by the Father and the Son. It is 
manifest, therefore, that the coming of the Holy 
Spirit in compliance with the agreement of the 
Father and the Son, implies an harmonious part- 
nership in the administration of the Gospel scheme 
and of the universe. But we are taken by surprise 
at this point of seemingly pronounced development 
of that administration, of the withdrawment of the 
Son. The language is very explicit as follows: 

"It is expedient for you, my disciples, that 1 
go away." and the reason assigned is, given in 
the same verse, "for if I go not away the Com- 
forter will not come unto you." This plainly puts 
the matter as a simple exchange of the presence of 
the Son for the presence of the Spirit, and leaves 
us somewhat uncertain as to the reason of this pro- 
cedure. Why could not the Son and the Spirit 
both lie here at the same time and harmoniously 
unite in the more powerfully carrying forward the 
completion of the enterprise, common to the pur- 
pose and interest of both I 

This submits to us a somewhat puzzling prob- 
lem as to the incompatability, or inexpediency of the 
pics ncc here of both at the same time. Without 
indulging of inadequate conjectures, it is somewhat 
confidently submitted that the real expediency of 



SUPPLEMENTAL . 173 

the Son's withdrawal was the fact thai He had 
completed His part of the redemptive work and 

had no occasion to remain. 

We now have the case so fully before as, even 

more fully than it was before the disciples address- 
ed, that we are able to form for ourselves a some- 
what independent or impartial judgment to this 
effect. 

When we consider the part taken by the Son in 
the deliverance of the sinner we distinctly find that 
he had undertaken the removal of the judicial 
obstacle. That is, he had undertaken to remove the 
obstacle explained as in the way to Heaven by 
the Broken Law. For there were two obstacles 
in the way, this legal obstacle and the spiritual 
obstacle presented by the interval aversion of the 
human soul towards its divine obligations. Of 
these two obstacles thus interposing on the path- 
way to Heaven, the Son officially and distinctively 
undertook by covenant the removal of the first, or 
legal obstacle. And the spiritual or internal ob- 
stacle in man was allotted to the Spirit by the 
Father to be transformed from its state of 
alienation into a state of holiness and harmony 
with God Himself. When, therefore, the Son had 
satisfied the penal claims of the Law by fully 
meeting its precept of requirements and bearing! 
its penalty as shown by his triumphant resurrec- 
tion from the dead, his return to Heaven to be 
seated where he now is on the right hand of the 
Father, his part, as administratively allotted, by 
the Father, was formally recognized as completed; 
and hence the proper thing for him to do was to 



174 BUPPLiBMRNTABY. 

act in harmony with this state of fact and retire, 
as giving due recognition to the distinctive pre- 
culiar part allotted to him by the Father in the 
scheme of redemption The unique service of the 
Son, therefore, was Godward in its bearings and 
propitiative in its effect; whereas the part still re- 
maining to be cared for and had been allotted 
to the Spirit was nianward and spiritual and 
consisted in the transformation of man's character 
into perfect harmony and communion with the 
holy God. This, of course, was the simple com- 
pletion of the At-onement that has been the text 
of our discourse. This seems to be so simple an 
explanation of this profound and puzzling issue 
that it is safe to submit it without further state- 
ment to the approval of the reader. 

Accepting this view of the situation places 
us in an advantageous position to interpret the 
unique part of the work allotted to the Holy Spirit. 

In a word : The Son undertook the removal 
of the objective barrier in the way to Heaven, as 
presented in the Broken Law^; and the Spirit under- 
took the removal of the spiritual or subjective bar- 
rier as presented by man's sinfully depraved and 
hopelessly fallen soul. 

A moment's reflection seems to answer the in- 
quiry that every one is prompted to indulge, which 
was the more difficult task, that of removing the 
objective obstacle in The Broken Law, or that of 
removing the spiritual obstacle in the fallen state 
of the human spirit? The performance of the 
former task seems to have been thoroughly executed 
within a limited time but the execution of the 



SUPPLKMKXIARY. 1 75 

latter task in its psychological and ethical detail 
has been in progress for centuries, and still pre- 
sents, and will present to the end, the trying spirit- 
ual problem with which only the Deity of the 
Spirit seems competent to wrestle. 

No one, therefore, would seem to find the 
slightest encouragement to estimate the difficulties 
of the work of the Spirit as less or inferior than 
that of the Son. Here is an equality of covenan- 
ted responsibility, and a profound competence in 
the Deity of the Spirit fitting him for its success- 
ful accomplishment. And perhaps, from our finite 
standpoint, the vexations and perpetuity of the pro- 
found and complex problem, w T hose solution is un- 
dertaken by the Spirit, seems to surpass that under- 
taken by the Son, although a formal comparison 
lies entirely without the range of our ability. 

I recall that a distinguished theologian of 
the past, in an untranslated treatise, speaks of the 
Spirit as the executor of the Trinity, which bold 
suggestion commends itself to most serious con- 
sideration. From the first until now the Spirit's 
operations have been, so to express it, in proxi- 
mate relation to our experiences as the operations 
of the Deity. When we look at the 2nd verse, 1st 
Chapter of Gen., "And the earth was waste and 
void ; and darkness was upon the face of the deep ; 
and the Spirit of God moved (or brooded) upon the 
face of the waters," the "ruah, M or Hebrew word 
for Spirit is the equivalent for "Pneuma" of the 
New Testament name of the same personality ; and 
the practical administrative function assigned to 
him in the very beginning of our earthly affairs is 



17(j si PPLKMENTARY. 

allotted to him in the progressive state dealt with 
in the New Testament. The Holy Spirit has been 
the administrative functionary throughout the do- 
main of the animate and inanimate universe in 
all the aires. We read for example in Romans 8-22 
& 23, "For we know that the whole creation groan- 
eth and travaileth in pain together until now. 
And not only so, but ourselves also, who have the 
first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan 
within ourselves, waiting for our adoption, to 
wit, the redemption of our body/' No language 
could more explicitly set forth the activities of 
the Spirit throughout all creation, from its lowest 
levels to the heights of the most spiritual activi- 
ties of the soul, a range of spiritual work quite 
transcendant of our full comprehension. And this 
activity we learn explicitly from Heb. 9-14: "How 
much more shall the blood of Christ, who through 
the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish 
unto God, cleanse your conscience from dead 
Avorks to serve the living God?" 

It is because of this service of the Holy Spirit 
as a helper under all conditions, and not a mere 
Comforter in sorrow^ that the accordant, significant 
name Paraclete has been used as the proper name 
of the Spirit. 

This language unequivocally informs us that 
the Savior Himself was consciously strengthened by 
the presence of the Spirit in the most critical 
phases of his unique work. It is to be especially 
noted that the notion which has found lodgment in 
the mind of some serious workers, that the Spirit is 



SUPPLEMES r.\i;v. 177 

a mere title of a divine influence is an unpardonable 
perversion of the Scripture. If we turn to the 
missionary work of the church as set forth in the 
proceedings of the work at Antioch appointing 
Paul as a missionary, we learn (hat he was senl 
forth distinctly by the Holy Spirit as a personal 
agent. Acts 13-2 says, "The Holy Spirit said, 
' Separate me Barnabas and Saul for the work 
whereunto I have called them/ " showing that 
the early missionary work of the church was con- 
ducted under the immediate direction and supervis- 
ion of the Holy Spirit as the great missionary 
agency, and from which we learn that this should 
be the sole reliance also of the modern church ; and 
the financial exigency of the early disciples which 
tempted Ananias and Sapphira to lie unto the Holy 
Ghost sets forth a flash of light on the fundamental 
truth that it is not possible to lie to a principle, 
but it is possible and practicable to lie to a person- 
ality. In various ways the moral agency and per- 
sonality of The Holy Spirit are thus overwhelming- 
ly attested, and wherever that truth is attested 
historically the doctrine of The Trinity is likewise 
accepted with thorough conviction. No more com- 
plete perversion of this fundamental truth was 
ever more plausibly conceived than in ancient 
Savellianism, which, with an easy going conception 
and conceit, undertook to predicate the distinctive 
activities of three personalities of a single per- 
sonality. 

Of course we must arrest our line of thought 
at this point, and for the important purpose espe- 
ciallv of Christ's owm formerlv delivered Creed of 






1 78 SUPPLEMENTARY. 

the Church found in John 16-8,9,1°. The crown- 
ing circumstance which it is here desired to mention 
in connection with the formal administration of 
the Spirit, is the neglected but notorious fact that 
the Holy Spirit in the most concise and explicit 
manner announces for the church a practical Cri 
in the following language: "And He, when he is 
come, will convict the world in respect of sin, and 
of righteousness, and of judgment: of sin, because 
they believe not on me; of righteousness, because 
I go to the Father, and ye behold me no more ; of 
judgment, because the prince of this world hatli 
been judged." 

The apostles' creed, of which we have spoken, 
is intellectual and fiducial, or a matter of faith, 
whereas this creed of Christ is in distinction there- 
from, practical and individual. 

1. It is shown that the conviction of sin 
must arise as primary, in the work of salvation 
from the present practical realization of the claims 
of natural religion. 

2. The righteousness set forth in going to the 
Father is fully explained as the justifying right- 
eousness wrought out by the Savior here on earth 
and not brought here from Heaven which consisted 
of his complete satisfaction of the precept and 
penalty of the broken law assumed by him in his 
mediation, and which righteousness is the specific 
object of saving faith, to Christ personally, and 
altruistically to all personal sinners. 

3. The judgment, of condemnation that over- 
hangs the fallen world is to find its final fulfillment 
in its execution upon Satan and his demoniacal fol- 



BTJPPLEiM BNTA] 17 ( J 

lowers ; to bo finally wound up at the Battle of A rma 
geddon, when their overthrow is accomplished, 
not by human agencies, but by divine interposition 
and final destination into a dreadful state of perma- 
nent retribution, as figuratively and truthfully rep- 
resented by divinely selected symbols, however 
meaningless literally, yet really significant in fact. 
This book is eminently and orthodoxically con- 
servative in contrast with the crazy and revolution- 
ary radicalism that threatens both the organiza- 
tion and the services of the Christian church at 
this time, with a calamity which fifty years will 
hardly repair. 



To My Booh. 

My dear book, child of my brain and heart, 
and the most important work of my life, I now take 
my leave of thee, and prayerfully commit thee to 
the gracious Providence of God, as a Herald of the 
At-onement, or Peace Treaty dictated of God to 
sinful man. 

My memory has vividly brought up again and 
again from boyhood the religious assemblies of 
more than half a century ago, a powerful appeal, 
which was in those days most effective in leading 
men to accept this Gospel Peace. Allow me to state 
an interesting incident. "When Bishop Asbury, in 
the closing years of the 18th century, came to this 
country and devoted himself to the introduction 
and establishment of the Methodist Church in this 



180 SUPPLEMENTABY, 

Xew World, he acted on quite a novel and original 
theory. He did not seek to enlist scholars, but 
godly persons, who could engagingly tell their ex- 
perience to others, tell effectively the "Story of 
the Cross. ,! The general result vindicates the 
wisdom of this procedure, each bringing thus a 
living Bible, for the Methodist church is now the 
largest and most powerful body of Protestant 
Christians in the world. I may mention, in illustra- 
tion, that the Bishop singled out a boy 19 years of 
age, son of a farmer of the middle county of 
Delaware, and licensed him for this itinerant evan- 
gelistic service of publishing the Bible as a living 
book of personal experience. This license was 
plainly written in a bold hand and was attested 
with a heavy wax seal. This license was in my 
keeping, and the seal was still preserved until my 
library was burned, unfortunately, some years 
since. 

This young man had an extraordinary voice, 
much fuller, stronger and sweeter, more winsome 
than the voice of Sankey, who sang so effectively 
for Moody, And this old revival hymn was a 
favorite with this young man who was more of an 
exhorter than a preacher, when exhortation was a 
formal part of the morning service. So the exhor- 
tation and the singing of this old revival hymn 
would go together. And again and again have I 
heard him sing it especially on camp ground to 
thousands of enthralled listeners, others weeping 
with him as he sang. Perhaps a score of times, 
while engaged on this book, have these scenes re- 
curred so vividly as to lead me to hum it over in 



BTJPFLEMES r\RY. l s l 

response to this prompting. 1 have looked up the 
old hymn, now seldom heard. I Had that I had 

verbally retained the first verse and will give it 
with some others in closing this book. 

That singer was my angelic and sainted Father, 
and I doubt not that he sang multitudes into 
Heaven, as lie sang it in sacred service more than 
50 years from 19 to 70 years of age. 

"Come, humble sinner, in whose breast 
A thousand thoughts revolve — 
Come, with your guilt and fear oppressed, 
And make this last resolve: 

I'll go to Jesus, though my sin 
Hath like a mountain rose; 
1 know his courts, I'll enter in, 
Whatever may oppose. 

Perhaps he may admit my plea, 
Perhaps will hear my prayer; 
But, if I perish, I will pray, 
And perish only there. 

I can but perish if I go, 
I am resolved to try; 
For if I stay away, I know 
I must forever die." 



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